The Artist’s Dilemma

April 27, 2022 by kkamilah Leave a comment

I sat down to start this post in my usual fashion; with misery, cynicism, and a little self-loathing. But then I remembered that negativity begets negativity, and the last thing I need is another reason to beat myself up. So, I’ve picked the next closest thing: honesty.

I took yet another break from writing in general. People have told me and continue to tell me they love my blog posts, my copy, my short stories — whatever it may be — but I just… don’t believe them. Imposter syndrome, I believe they call it. Feelings of inadequacy that block us from ever proving to ourselves that we are better than we think we are. It’s a vicious cycle that I often struggle to break out of.
We create art to express ourselves and resonate with people, so when they tell us they want to see us or hear us, why can’t we deliver? Why do we feel like frauds in our field –surely I’m not meant to be in this club? You’ll find that this club is filled almost exclusively with people who are, in fact, very good at what they do. Conversely, there are a lot of people who produce ridiculously sub-par work, but because they believe they can get to the top with it, they soar. Right to the very top. Read more

I think I’m here, therefore I’m here(?)

November 13, 2021 by kkamilah Leave a comment

Or whatever Descartes said.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything on this blog. I have found myself drawn more to the throwaway simplicity of Substack; my creative (?) thoughts are sporadic and I have a very short attention span, even when it’s for myself. When I lay down at night, I jump from memory, to thought, to scene two in that same thought, to scene three, back to scene one to find out how else it could have played out, to a different thought altogether, to a horrible scenario that I hope will never happen but I’m now prepared for in case it does. Long blog posts don’t really do it for me, and I know they don’t really do it for anyone else, either. I talk about things succinctly (but often), I think about things forever and then write about them succinctly (I hope) (but often). Other times, there is waffle.

This is one of those times.

I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t been writing anything over the past couple of weeks because I’ve had fake nails on. I don’t know how you were expecting that sentence to end, but I know it wasn’t like that – maybe you expected simple writer’s block, being bogged down with work, a crisis in the family. And all of those things are true, but, for a writer, not nearly as debilitating as having long nails that prevent you from typing efficiently on the horrible flat butterfly keys of a 2015 Macbook that just won’t die. Let’s not tempt fate now, though, because, being older and closer to real adult life, I can’t afford my Macbook to die on me the same way I could when I was 19 and didn’t want to think about the future. I used to look into the future and see a black screen because, as far as I was concerned, I should have been dead already and anything that was to happen after that is a miracle in itself. Maybe miracle is the wrong word. Now, I look into the future and I panic because I wasted so much time being dead inside that I now have so much catching up to do; now, I look into the future and it’s not just about me – now, I see the white picket fence. Not really a white picket fence because, living in London, I know a small Tesco lorry will probably back into it and ruin everything. Maybe a big, strong, robust wall. And some barbed wire. And lots of CCTV and gates and deadlocks. Maybe a rottweiler.

I digress. But it’s also a nice illustration of how my thought process works. I get antsy, I can’t sit still. I get anxious, I get frustrated, I don’t know how to be calm. I am, quite simply, all over the place, all the time.

But sometimes, all the chaos must come to a stop and I am nowhere.

Who are you, really?

January 5, 2021 by kkamilah 4 Comments

Okay. Hold tight, because we’re venturing into my favourite topic.

Who are we?

I do love a bit of psychoanalysis. It’s the question we will explore… forever.

It will never end, and we like to try and exhaust all avenues for as long as we live. There are questions we’ll ask ourselves for the rest of our lives; after all, what is there to do once we’ve found the answers? Self-sabotage, perhaps, so we can start again. Or, more sensibly, create more questions. Find more unexplored areas.

What is the meaning of life? What’s the recipe for success? What is true happiness? How do you heal from heartbreak and trauma? How do you know when it’s love? How do we even define all of these things?

I think most of the difficulty in answering these questions lies in a lack of awareness about the self.

Unless we really know who we are, we can’t truly know where we stand in relation to topics that require introspection and deep understanding of ourselves … and questions like the above do not have universal answers. There is no right or wrong. As the world evolves, the answers change. For some, success is living so comfortably that you never have to shop price low to high. For others, it’s being able to comfortably cry whilst staring into your lover’s eyes; it’s being unable to find the words to truly tell them how much you love them in that moment and that’s the only way your body will let you. And for a handful, it’s living carefree and alone in an art studio with a Wholefoods around the corner.

[Love.] // Where it all begins

November 28, 2020 by kkamilah Leave a comment

Our perception of love begins when we’re kids, only we don’t know it.

Love is normal, the standard against which we’ll later measure every act ever committed; anything anybody does is measured in terms of where it exists on the Love meter. If it makes you happy, it’s a 10. If it hurts, it’s a 1. Burning down trees and using products with palm oil is a lack of love for the Earth and orangutans. Giving to charity is empathy materialised, and empathy is a form of love. Not necessarily for the individual with whom you’re empathising, but a love and understanding for other human beings in general. Or maybe it’s simply a love for your religion; maybe even just no love for Hell.

This is how the meter works in theory, anyway. As you get older, it becomes a lot more complicated and it makes no sense when you love someone who makes you want to shoot your own brains out.

(Anti) Feminism, part 3 – The Phenomenon of the ‘Pick-Me’

October 28, 2020 by kkamilah Leave a comment

Ah yes. We have reached the end of this angry rant with my favourite topic.

Not least because I am, by the standards of Twitter’s feminists, a big fat, giant, massive pick-me.

I don’t believe pick-me exists in the Oxford dictionary, but by and large it refers to a woman who doesn’t hate men (and vice-versa, but I can only speak from the perspective of a straight woman).

You defend men, believe they have feelings and should be looked after the way women are? Pick me! You want to look after your man; you want to show him love, cook for him, and do nice things for him? Absolutely a pick me, disgusting! For shame! You like men for their personality and their character, rather than their money, clothes, possessions etc? Ew, I hope he picks you sis. You don’t want all men to die? On God, we gon’ get someone to pick you.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? That’s because it is.

The only anti-pick-me narrative I agree with is that of a woman actively bashing other women for the approval of men. Being snide, bitchy, and unnecessarily rude just to get a few laughs out of men; laughing when a man hurts a woman who has done nothing wrong; supporting an abuser just because you think he’s sexy. Purposely putting other women down and trying to make yourself look better. That’s a real ‘please pick me, I’m different to the other basic bitches. I’m so much cooler and better than them, please pick me, they’re all ugly ogres and I’m so different to the rest; you’ll never find another girl like me, I promise you that. You’ll be thinking about me when you’re with her lol I’m so different, I leave a mark on people.’

But obviously, people have watered this down to suit their own agenda, and now pick-me generally refers to a woman who apparently does and says things as a mating call, because we obviously don’t have our own brains, and everything we do in life is solely in the quest to attain male approval. Which is very telling for the people who use the phrase. What a phenomenon.

I want to dissect it and destroy it.

Four things I’ve learnt this decade

February 15, 2020 by kkamilah 1 Comment

Processed with VSCO with p5 preset

Every time you try to forget who I am, I’ll be right there to remind you again

I know. And yes I did mean this decade. And yes I am here again, a mere week after my last post. It’s pissing down outside, which makes it a fine day to rant.

We’re only halfway through February, we’ve barely grazed the new decade, and I feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a million lessons and gained another five years of life experience. I’m just hoping it doesn’t show on my face, so I’m frantically blurting it out onto a new post in the hope that it doesn’t settle into my fine lines.

Lesson number one, typing on a MacBook with long ass nails does not a good idea make.