So, you know when you have something you want to do… and it just lives in the back of your mind? Just sitting there. When you have spare time, you drift towards it, but then what always happens? Life. Responsibilities. Emotions… you name it. I don’t know what prompted me to open this browser and start blogging again other than that I’m really asking this question right now in my life… “why is it so hard to do what we truly want to do?” which is often much different than what we are actually doing. How often in life do our dreams and the things that will bring us true fulfillment forfeit to other things… mirages of pleasure, social expectations, comfort and safety? Why is it so difficult to be who we dream of being deep in our soul?
Blogging, and sharing my thoughts, has been this for me over the last many months. Just sitting in the back of my mind, always inviting me. I feel in a way that writing is a really important of my life and has been one of the most fulfilling efforts I’ve put my time towards in my life. I feel like here I can really talk about what’s on my heart and hopefully it can help you navigate something along your own journey. Many of you might have been reading or following along through my artistic and musical endeavors… but I’ve come to realize in a lot of ways those mediums are an extension of what you are experiencing here… just me. What I think. How I’m processing life… how I bring some sort of meaning to the pain and confusion that is at the core of my human experience. We are both finite specs of dust and little copies of God. How is that going to be easy to understand?
This last year of my life was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. In a very tangible way, everything I’ve ever wanted as a young man began to come true. My art career has taken off… I found my place and my voice as a visual artist in Atlanta. I set out in 2020 to “break” my art career and I did exactly that. I went for this with every ounce of energy I had… literally. You know, yall really only see the finished product of everything… but no one but me knows the amount of energy and dedication it took to accomplish everything I did last year… The amount of times I pushed through exhaustion, stayed up all night, got up early, trips to the art store, hardware store, forgot one part, two trips to the hardware store… made it happen at all costs. I don’t know… I went for everything as if the future of my life’s experience depended on what I was doing… which served me and ultimately hurt me at the same time. I was winning awards and grants, most eligible bachelors of Atlanta type stuff, seeing my name on billboards, and having people stop me and recognize me in public. art, women, partying, and eventually money… on repeat. In many ways, a modern young mans dream. And maybe that’s what you see online and believe my life to be, and in many ways I’ve also believed it… but here, on the eve of my 30th birthday, I find almost a chilling sobriety in a perspective that transcends all of these external things and peers deep in the mysterious void that is the soul underneath all that is seen.
As an artist, you set out to build an identity around what you do. Naturally, we all want to be known… and for artists, we often believe that once our expression is validated, we will therefore be validated as people. Therefore, in the first stage we pour a great deal of energy into “playing the part.” This is part of the artists’ great power and also great vulnerability. It is one of the great challenges to accept the fact that what you do isn’t who you are, and this is why success turns out to be one of the most deceivingly dangerous things an artist (or person) can experience in their lifetime. Success of any kinds… be it compliments, sales, popularity, awards (which are subjective might I remind you), status… we chase these things but can very easily become intoxicated by their allure… feeling for a moment in our lives the validation for our expression.
Recently, I’ve been going through a big burnout. It has been frustrating, as someone who is used to being able to produce anything he sets his mind to… It has been different for me recently. Slower. Like something won’t let me rush on to the next project yet. As I think about it now, I never took time to ever breathe or allow myself to just live… making art, making moves, tattooing, making money… was all that was on my mind for like, a really long time. And though it propelled me into a whole other atmosphere as an artist and person, I think my body eventually caught up to me. It’s like I couldn’t find the feeling of inspiration, I began to dread working or creating. I needed a break. This time has forced me to take a look at the interior of my life… my heart, my soul, my health… and has helped me to further realize this fact that many times in life we can find ourselves on “auto-pilot…” just performing over and over and over again to appease this arbitrary void. This empty feeling... I realized that my work ethic is a double-edged sword because it propels me forward and separates me from most other artists… but it also serves as a coping mechanism to avoid this nagging feeling deep inside, that I am nothing without my ability to create.
As I took on more and more of my persona as an artist, it became harder and harder to be honest with myself and what I wanted. It felt as if the initial wonder and awe of all of this was clouded in a hazy mist… corrupted by the need to maintain my status or reputation and to uphold this “image” of a young, emerging rockstar artist. I suppose what I am experiencing now is the unique emptiness that comes from getting everything I thought I wanted… only to feel as empty as I ever have.
All of these feelings have led my soul to pose the simple question, “so, what now?” I’ve always heard that in the first half of your life, spiritually, your mission is to build a container for your soul to live in. Simply put, it’s the shell, or that mask, that you will present to the world to attract value, love and validation to you. But it’s a totally strange feeling to realize that you’ve built the container already...It kind of feels like the life you spent your entire youth building and chasing now means nothing and you have to all start over again. I started to really wonder…. How much more do I need? How much more praise and validation could I really receive or even handle? How much more fun can a big party get? How much drunker or higher can I get? How much “hotter” can a girl really be? Where is this all headed? It started to feel like I was stuck in a revolving door… cycling through the motions, eventually forgetting to ever ask myself honestly… is this really what I want?
I think what’s made it so hard for me to “open up” here is this idea I have that I need to uphold this persona for the arbitrary “yall” to adore and to aspire to be. Idk, it’s all so arbitrary. I don’t even know who I’m writing to right now, maybe myself. But anyways, I am afraid of the judgment and the opinions. I’m afraid that I won’t be everything you think I should be, and I also fear that someone out there would use this as an opportunity to put me down or call me weak. But again, I don’t know what led me here to take this up again, but I feel like I really need to do it for myself… To let myself express myself and my thoughts again. To give myself the opportunity here (and in my real life) to be Andrew Huang, the person… and not just Andrew Blooms the artist. I want to be able to talk about the things in life that really matter to us beneath this world of arbitrary digital validation… the things that each of us thinks about all day but don’t really know how to talk about. Generally speaking, we are actually all pursuing the actualization of happiness, fulfillment and peace… it’s just the journey there is long, arduous, and at many times quite dark…
I guess what I fear for myself is that I’d spend my life being loyal to that which is not loyal back to me… chasing the superficial pleasures of life, pacified continuously by the next cheap thrill and next great lie… never knowing the true freedom of choosing my own steps and unashamedly pursuing the true desires of my heart. And the truth is, I have really no idea how to move forward, I just know that it is necessary now to do so. And maybe the beginnings of all great changes begin with the willingness to ask yourself the questions of your own soul. And for now, mine is, “so, what now?”