You Don't Have to Prove Your Existence
I miss my childhood Minecraft YouTube channel
Minecraft YT Channel
If I had done it all correctly, I would be in my YouTuber gaming house right now with all of my best friends from elementary school. We would be playing Minecraft all day and recording it for our millions of subscribers. We would never get bored, and we would never worry about working a “job.”
I didn’t even know what having a job was like back then. I barely do now, I am in art school.
I remember talking to my imaginary subscribers while I played, recording my screen with a sketchy, pirated software that I cannot imagine is still around. I jumped with excitement when someone left a comment, usually my mom (te quiero Ma, gracias por ser mi fan), or when my video made it past 10 views (it was me refreshing the page to check the count, but I told myself it wasn’t). It brought me joy, somehow. It’s easy being a kid.
I miss my Minecraft worlds; they felt infinite with all the possibilities a click away. I remember my time as if I were living there, not as if I were playing a game. The cave sound scaring me so bad that I would run out of there as if I would actually lose my life to a creeper. The soundtrack filling the quietness of a summer night.
I used to be able to stare at a screen for hours. That’s all I looked forward to. There was one day when I played Roblox from 6 AM to 12 AM with only breaks for eating. The good ol’ days.
I wish I had that type of drive now.
I used to sit and edit videos for nobody. I created thumbnails with cracked Photoshop for only me to see. I look back in an Interstellar sort of way, screaming and begging for me to get off the computer and go kick a ball or do my math homework. Unlike Cooper, I did not succeed. The childhood Minecraft YouTube channel to washed-up graphic designer pipeline needs to be studied. If only I had spent all that time learning to do anything else. Maybe fix a car or something. That might be cool.
Creating
It feels like a drag to create anything these days, to put the effort into anything or come up with anything original. “Original.” That’s the trap I keep falling into.
I don’t get joy out doing things anymore. I can’t quite decipher why. Looking back, I can’t remember the last time I felt like I did or made something for nothing but fun and silliness. With everything I do or try, it feels like a challenge to prove something. There is a hatred and angst attached to my work, my hobbies, my “passions” without measure. Spite.
“I’ve seen how excited and committed to this stuff you get, I don’t buy that you don’t like doing it” - is something someone told me once when I complained about the vanity of design and my longing for doing something that feels fulfilling and meaningful.
I got into graphic design out of pure spite. I enrolled in the class in high school as a joke, and I treated it like a joke. Until my teacher (talked about him in another post) noticed this, stopping by my computer. “You know, this would be pretty good if you actually put some real effort into it.”
Effort? What the hell is this guy talking about? I was tracing a meme of this spinning cockroach with the pen tool to convert into a logo. My color scheme was bright orange and dark purple. Maybe like #FFAB1A and #3600A3. I remember it to this day. Pfff, okay sure. I can make something actually cool. This stuff is easy. Another Interstellar moment. Why couldn’t my calculus teacher have said something like this? Or chemistry? Would I be happier now?
But I chose to do the graphic design class because I had already used cracked Photoshop before. For my shitty childhood YouTube channels. Easy credit… it meant I could focus on the real important classes that would determine my future.
But that one comment made me mad. It hit my ego. Soon enough, I was consumed. I can be the greatest, and I won’t even try.
Spite
I started failing my other classes. My parents started to notice. They probably started shaking and crying. “Please, mijo, don’t do this art bullshit.” That’s probably what they thought. They actually don’t really talk like that, but maybe that’s what they thought. But I was consumed. It became all I did and thought about.
My friends started to tease me. “You can crash on my couch if you want, when you’re broke in the future and stuff.” It was funny, but every joke has a bit of truth behind it. It only made me want to prove everyone wrong even more. I wanted to see just how far I could take it. I wanted to be the best. More than anything, I think I wanted to be original. That’s the trap I always fall into, isn’t it?
My parents are both engineers. My brother went into computer science. I was an angsty teen, and I wanted to be different. I wanted a challenge. If anyone could do this, I wanted to be the one to do it. All eyes were on me.
I got denied from every school I wanted to go to. I was still not good enough. Wherever I went, I had to work harder and be better. I had to become the best. Everything I make has to be proof that I am alive, and I am making, and I am thinking, and I am not just screaming into the void.
But no one was watching. It is just void. I was competing against no one. I wanted (and still clearly do) to prove my worth. To prove I have value, that I am capable. I am no different from the kid doing commentary videos and thumbnails for 3 subscribers. Except now I beat myself up for it. It feels like, at this point, after all these years of anger and hyperfixation, it is all I have.
I never wanted the millions of subscribers. I don’t want the external praise or validation (at least I really don’t think I do). I didn’t want to be rich and have a YouTuber mansion. I don’t want to design for others to tell me I am worth something. I simply wanted to keep having fun. I want to create for nothing other than loving what I do. I am not sure if I can.]
Do we lose that at a certain age? When we private all of our videos out of embarrassment. When we give up talking about our future house, where we will make vlogs together. When we start talking about college, and salaries, and success, and pride, and …
I certainly have lost it.
You don’t have to prove your existence
I am writing that to tell myself. I think almost everything I write is to convince myself of something.
I have exhausted myself; I am totally drained. I wish with all my heart that I could end this post with something like: “We should all create and do and live like a childhood Minecraft YT channel!” If it were that easy, I wouldn’t be dumping all this angst and melancholy into this Google Doc. If regaining that childhood spark in our eye was that easy, the world would probably be a lot better. I guess the best we can do is try?
I am tired of making my primary reason for doing or trying anything a challenge of my self-worth. “If I can’t do this at a higher level than most, then I failed.” It’s like putting a knife to your throat. I always thought others were holding it against me, but the knife has always been in my hand.
I keep telling myself that this mentality is what has brought me so far. That the angst, the spite, the desire to prove everyone wrong is what has made me so great. But it’s only made me miserable. The kid who laughed and recorded his screen for fun, he was great. His thumbnails were horrible, the edits were corny, and there was zero entertainment in the content. But he laughed and had fun. That’s being great.
I started cooking recently. I really like doing it. It feels like my creative energy being used more healthily. It feels like what design is supposed to be for me. Like exploring caves in a Minecraft world. I try to keep it cleansed and holy, away from the corrupted mentality that plagues my work. Like most things in my life, it started with the same seedling: Pfff, cooking? That’s easy. I can do that, and I can be great. But I try to keep that voice quiet when I do it. I try to laugh when I fail and make a mess.
I started learning the piano on a cute electric keyboard that we had as decoration in our house. There’s something really special about instruments. No one ever says, “Hey, go over there and perform on that piano.” People say, “Can you play something?” Play. “Go play.” There are rules, rights and wrongs, complexities and intricacies I still have zero grasp on. But it’s still playing. Just playing. It’s not an elitist action like “designing.”
I have no idea what I am doing, but I included a short recording of my progress. It feels nice to share this since I know most people do not read this. It feels nice to write this knowing that most people don’t read it. It feels like the YouTube channel.
No one says, “Can you design me a meal?” Or, “Can you create me a musical composition?” I want to start cooking designs and playing with ideas and layouts. Life is play. I don’t want to be the best; I want to have the most fun.
