everything I can't stop thinking about
recent hyper-fixations that changed me
Hiii, Welcome back to Balancing Act!
One of the things I’m learning to find balance with is my hyper-fixations and short-lived interests. I used to carry so much shame around my tendency to deeply obsess over something for weeks just to throw it across the room when I see the next shiny thing.
But recently I realized they’re all gifts sent at divine times. The music I'm interested in at any given moment usually deeply relates to what I'm going through. The hobby I gravitate towards is the necessary medium to channel the emotions I'm carrying at the time. And the random interest comes to me exactly when I need to learn something from it.
All of my hyper-fixations and short-lived interests are what make me, me. And I want to lean more into them. I’m thinking about making this a series (but who knows, this could be me hyper-fixating on another idea). Either way, I hope you stick around for this article and even share what you’re hyper-fixating on at the time of reading. I genuinely love having these conversations with people.
Hobbies & Interests - ✨🎨The Art Girlies✨
I’m a writer. Writing will forever be my preferred medium. However, up until a few weeks ago, I experienced a window of 3 months where I found it almost impossible to write expressively. I just couldn’t find the words.
After a few days, I felt the random nudge to draw. I have zero drawing skills, but I’m learning to lean into the “random nudges”. One of the 30-second sketches I did somehow conveyed the massive emotions I felt at the time. It felt like I learned how to speak another language. Since then, I’ve been obsessively watching drawing tutorials and doodling every day.
I’ve always liked the idea of adding more mediums to my creative tool belt, so I’m all for it. And it’s nice seeing how a single nudge like this led me to another art form to fall in love with. Even if it doesn’t materialize beyond flowers in a sketchbook, it’ll serve as another language for me. I have to give credit to the influence of this nudge, which was my recent discovery of artists Frida and Hilma.
Hilma Af Klint 🥀🕊️
I recently joined Xenia’s latest group Creation Portals (such an amazing group so far) hoping to learn how to bring more sensuality into my creations. A person there kindly, might I say divinely, shared this article about Hilma Af Klint and her journey of incorporating spirituality in art. She’s an amazing artist and spiritualist known for creating several incredible collections, with the latest including spiritually rooted paintings displaying themes of duality, balance, and life phases.
Hilma's interest in theology and commitment to remaining an open channel for source to speak through her work resonated with me, heavily. Her work, and her story, felt like a divine gift to me during a time when I was contemplating spirituality being the underlying theme of my future works.
Many of my poems in The Box felt “channeled” (quotation marks because I have so much to say about this) and carry a running theme of duality, but I want to go deeper. I feel that my best work is on the other side of me leaning more into this. I’m ready to accept the fact that those who resonate with it will feel the impact while those who don’t just might not be the target audience. Thank you Hilma.
I’ve been on a deep dive watching videos and reading articles about Hilma’s life and her work ever since I read that first article, a few of the most interesting linked below.
Frida Kahlo ❤️🔥🗡️
I discovered Frida Kahlo just a few days before Hilma from this video a friend sent me. Frida’s work inspired me on so many levels, but the most impactful was her inspiring me to express pain throughout my work (more than I have already). Each piece of hers that I saw carried dark emotions and big life themes like gender, religion, death, and pain, but through bright, bold, and stunning imagery. Simple motifs told full stories. All the things I aspire my poetry to do. Appear (or sound) beautiful, but encourage the mind to expand and the heart to contemplate.
Music - ✨🎙️The girls, gays, and guys with nails in their hair🎧✨
At any given time, I’m stimming with a specific artist (or album). But recently I noticed the bodies of work I stim with are relevant to my life at the time. For example, when I first heard Beyonce’s Renaissance, it was all I could listen to for almost 3 months. Not kidding, I was listening to that album in full at least once a day (this speaks volumes since I’m not part of the beehive). Around that same time, I was falling in love deeper with my body and myself in general. And those who have heard the album know it was a self-love project through and through.
Renaissance by Beyonce
Or the period I hyper-fixated on Teezo Touchdown for a couple of months. I listened to his most recent album 3 times a day everyday when I first heard it. That happened to be around the time I felt the most inspired creatively in general, but discovering him took it to another level.
How Do You Sleep At Night? With You by Teezo Touchdown
“I think confidence, happiness, and creativity comes in waves. If I knew where to find it, I’d probably overdose on it” - Teezo Touchdown in this Fender interview.
Though his music doesn’t necessarily mention creativity, it has come up in many interviews. In this interview he talks about his “Rid the Mid” campaign, carrying the message of aiming to not be a mediocre creative.
His most recent album, How Do You Sleep At Night? With You, was a genre-fluid masterpiece. I could feel the fun he had making it. That album, along with many others I adore (special mention of Andre 3000’s flute album, New Blue Sun), was labeled an “experimental” album.
Hearing experimental pieces that I can't get out of my head inspires me to make sure everything I produce is considered “experimental”. Never quite fitting the criteria for any medium of art, ever.
The Marias, Faye, & Billie Eilish 🌊- their melancholic voices and psychedelic beats helped me tap into the sensual energy I wanted to include in my work. Soft but deeply felt, is an effect I've been going for.
Honorable mentions:
No One noticed by the Marias
HIT ME HARD AND SOFT by Billie Eilish
In A Good Way by Faye Webster
Most obsessed with… 🥁Meg the stallion & Chappell Roan 💐🌈💖
The overlapping theme of my obsession with these two right now is their expression of feminine energy. The music of these two queens has intense messaging yet is presented with big voices and a child-like energy that brings every crowd to their knees (it’s me, I’m the crowd). I don’t know what the next chapter of my life looks like, but I have a feeling it involves using my voice more and having childlike fun with the confidence of a goddess. I have so much more to say about my love for them, but I’m running out of space. To be continued…
*fav thing about both of them is the bold lgbtq+ representation* 🌈💖
Mamushi by Megan Thee Stallion ft Yuki Chiba (WATASHI WA STAR🤘🏾)
Clip of live performance of Picture You by Chappell Roan
Honorable mentions, songs I quite literally cannot stop playing:
Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan
The timing of my discovery of this song was so interesting. Tell me this isn’t the plot of Nana, ?! At least a little. (IYKYK, I just binged a few months ago and I’m ready to talk about it)
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan - (no skips!)
MEGAN by Megan Thee Stallion (no skips!!)
I’m walking away from this round of hyper-fixations with the inspiration to go deeper in my work, aiming to genre bend, new-found love for another art form, more sensuality, tapping into my femininity, and permission to lean more into a childlike spirit while standing firm in who I am.
This is how the hyper-fixations go for me now. I follow the nudges, consume (and create) the art, let it change me for the better then move on to the next thing. All a balancing act, whether it looks that way on the outside or not. Can’t wait to write the next issue of hyper-fixations in a few weeks! Thanks for reading. 🤍
Consider checking out my new YouTube channel here, and maybe even grab a copy of The Box written by me. Anything else I have going on will be announced here and Instagram linked below. Thanks again for being here 🤍
This. Is. So. GOOD!
I felt like I was having a "twin, where have you been?!" moment because I am the same way. I'll listen to the same song on repeat for weeks, when I find a new hobby I go all the way in, and new topics? I want to learn everything about the lore - I'm learning to scale back because that ADHD tax is real - but pairing the hyper-fixation with my writing has really been helpful!
I share so many of these obsessions lol! I LOVE Hilma af Klimt’s works! I remember being so mesmerized by one of her pieces the first time I saw it and was convinced she was tapping into something before I learned about her spiritual channeling. Her work is so inspiring and I have a book of some of her journal pages.