A year of reflection. This art piece is a personal one. This year I said STOP and decided to turn around and look myself in the eye. I took a break from streaming after 7 years. I wanted to see how I would feel without it. I have always put my streams at nr 1 in my life and I needed to be honest with how much it hung on me that I hadn’t ‘made it’ yet. I had my high moment and uprise but to keep it there costed too much of my time and it was too much digital life for me. With the constant downfalls I just at some point was done pushing so hard. So I took a step back and went to see how it felt.
It didn’t take long for me to stream again but I went into a once a week rhythm (instead of the former 3 times a week), intending to do more on YouTube. Instead of more YouTube content (procrastinating on it) I decided to help organize a Flow Arts gathering and involve myself more with the Amsterdam fire jam community. I did a bunch of research into Flow Arts and performance arts but never got to the point of sharing a lot of it on YouTube.
When I ran out of money and performances didn’t pick up, I decided and got myself a nighttime job at the DHL. I was also working as a social media manager but that didn’t cover all my cost. Slowing down on streaming also ment not much income out of it and my timing was terrible to take a pause from it. Working a job did bring me some stable income and I dared to go to a lot more social events because of it. I didn’t feel the pressure of work so much which before I always had when streaming. There is just always something to do for the stream and now I experienced how it was to not have this pressure.
In my free time I would still be tinkering on my streams, mostly writing up ideas. I noticed that if I don’t stream, I don’t practice my art forms a lot. Mind you, I also needed a break and so I feel like the resting I did was necessary too. Still I have many dreams that I want to bring into reality and one of them involves the digital lifestyle. So why shy away from it? Just because I’m not the most famous or biggest one doesn’t mean it’s not important. We build such a cozy space on the internet and I found really amazing people there that I otherwise would have never met because of distance. So let’s just get back to working on the dreams instead of worrying about networking and high numbers. With my comeback in September, I decided to do my streams as to how I feel and not push myself on something I don’t want to do. I stopped networking all together and only visit the streamer friends I enjoy and have an authentic friendship / interest with.
This brought the joy back into it all for me. I feel free and inspired, happy with the group we build and am even more skeptical on allowing people in. I’m now guarding the Star Nation and I don’t want just anyone to join it anymore. I allowed my rules to bend sometimes pleasing people so that they would stay and come back but that ship has sailed now. Either you are kind and respectful or we just don’t allow you in. Let’s take more care for what is already there instead of reaching out for new. I will now just trust the new will find their way to us if they’re ment to.
One of the other reasons I was shook up this year was because I didn’t have a long term relationship anymore. I realised a lot of my previous relationships were quite soon after each other and I decided I needed to break this pattern. I gave myself the rule to be single for at least a year and to be free to do whatever I feel like. Getting to know myself was both fun and hard and completely relied on me being brutally honest. The year taught me a lot.
When I looked myself in the eye and sat down to gather my thoughts about the year I found out different things.
- I am strong for carrying myself so far
- I feel deeply and that’s why I’m afraid
- Mad at myself for not knowing what exactly I wanted
- Admitting my failures and lost dreams
- Realizing how tied my personal life was with my content and how hard that can be
- Admitting my desire to put my art and work first
- Admitting to well - personal - desires
- Realizing the impact of a partner on myself and my behaviour
- Realizing the impact of being single, dating and meanings of relationships
- Not wanting to be fully digital nor always in the offline world. One is not better than the other, they compliment each other.
- I told truth with myself about how I feel
At the end of the year I can look back and say I struggled with all this but I also overcame a lot. I feel a lot stronger in myself and feel I have more of a direction again. Dusting myself off to set out on my new adventures bringing more life into my Art & start my YouTube journey. The end spurt in the last month to YouTube Partner is real.. I might still accomplish this goal!
The streaming will go back to a bit more variety not just allowing art, DJ and flow arts but also video games back on the schedule. Now that I’ve decided that the story I’m writing is going to be a video game first, it’s research time hehe. The game I will build is going to be a strategy / city building kinda game and so these games need to be researched. Time to pay attention to the full range of how the games operate and decide what mine will be like. Preferably more original than taking over a full control system of another game and just adding another skin to it but let’s see which frameworks I need to get it going in the first place. The story is a life project and so I’m not gonna be too hard on the firsts project coming out of it yet. More will come, this game is just for season 1! (Working at the DHL gave me a lot of thinking time…)
So much to look forward too and reflecting on this year brought me a lot and so the art piece I’m releasing resonates with this year for me. It represents honesty to yourself. If you really look at yourself, who are you under all the layers of fears and comfort zones? Are you taking the actions that match who you want to be? Or are you sleeping and on automatic default settings? My way of taking control is to dive deeper into what I want and try every damn day to get closer to that becoming reality.
So cheers to a struggle year that made me stronger YAAAAY - lol. Seriously though, I appreciate each and every one of you who gave me the time and space to gather myself. I have never felt so loved as when everyone kept telling me to take my time and not ask for anything content wise or pressure me whatsoever. I feel incredibly blessed by the Star Nation shining strongly together and welcoming me back into the digital world with love and light. I love you all, and you are all the reason I keep being inspired to follow my own path and keep going. Together the world is a little brighter, I feel it <3
Cheers to you! Much love and light, Nova
