Visual Journaling

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I really enjoy watching this discussion. Two things that really resonate with me are the stimulation effect and mindfulness that Ian Birky mentioned. He stated that our stimulation is more restricted during quarantine time than before. I felt the same in March last year when covid just started. Then I came across a question on Quora that “If the corona virus lasts for two years, will schools, universities, and colleges remain closed for the entire two years?” A very interesting answer really inspired me: 

“If history is any guide then in August of 1665, Trinity College at Cambridge was shut down for two years during an outbreak of plague. A formerly undistinguished student named Isaac Newton pursued his studies at home and when he came back to Cambridge in 1667, he’d worked out the basics of calculus, optics and universal gravitation and essentially kick-started the Age of Enlightenment.

So, maybe sending everyone home for two years now might not be all bad.”

That answer made me think about what I’m really passionate about other than finance, so I started taking fashion design classes last year. All the colors, patterns and silhouettes became my stimulation at that time. Then I realized how I enjoyed art when I was a child and realized the last art piece I created was my elementary school graduation painting about 10 years ago. It was just like the rocks tha was mentioned in the discussion, that my interest in art was always inside myself but I haven’t really seen it for years until the quarantine started. Therefore, I decided to postpone my graduation and take the fifth year at Lehigh just for art classes. 

Now I’m happy that I took so many interesting art, architecture and design classes, watched many runway shows and created some projects for the past years. Anything beautiful and creative makes me feel excited and energetic. As visual journaling shows, I am physically locked in the cage due to covid, but my eyes and mind are travelling around the world and through history. I saw more art, created more projects, and paid more attention to beauty in everyday life in this past year than ever before, which is the bright side of quarantine.