Me versus Me, a Narcissism Debate

What is the last thing you learned?

Last thing I learned was something that I had heard once or twice before but I don’t think sunk in.

I was on LinkedIn. I find myself there a lot for business strategies and it’s becoming a habit but I need to adjust. My social media intake there is probably a little unhealthy right now.

Anyway. I follow the “Brutal Truth podcast“. They send a lot of memes and a ton of sales tips.

(Which is nice because I’m customer service driven. I lean into sales but sales is not my immediate wheel house. There’s a learning curve and I’m aware of it.)

(I probably need to listen to the podcast part regularly. But at this moment I just follow them for easily visible content.)

Mixed in it with all that is motivational moments.

Thank you, Michael B. Jordan.

Today we had absolute icon Michael B. Jordan in my feed. And he’s not wrong in the quote. Focusing on yourself versus your past self puts things into stark perspective.

Maybe I’m not doing better than I was last year. But things are looking up from 2017. That was when I was scared of my own voice. My 2-month anniversary…

I remember getting up off the couch when it was time to go to the gym for the first time. I remember what drove me to it. The need and immediate desire for change. It was helpful. It soaked up some of my resources at the time, and eventually when I moved out of my apartment it became more difficult to go and I eventually was not sectioning off time for it.

I didn’t put up boundaries where I needed them and I didn’t get the help that I needed between 2017 and 2018. I didn’t know how to ask for help because I didn’t have a voice to speak with at the time. My self-esteem was shot.

Things are looking up from Feb 2019. That’s what I was recovering from my first, and major, schizophrenia attack. I was in St Louis, and my psychosis was telling me that my child was not safe.

Maybe in 4 days when I start my new job not only will I be in a better position, I will have focused part of that time on my small business, spent part of that time with my son, and generally be in a completely different world than I was back in 2019.

I want to give me from 2017 a hug. I want to tell her that it would have been okay to blog. Whether I would have spilled everything about my relationship at the time with my ex, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t have been narcissistic. It would have been freeing.

Like I said: LinkedIn is perhaps not the healthiest place for me right now.

Someone posted that “Reflection is the sincerest form of self flattery”. I posted that I felt that I was always a little narcissistic about my blog. But after this post I think I’m going to remove them from my connections.

Maybe I’m creating a wind tunnel: I had been seriously psyched up to learn from this particular connection after a conversation with him in my messages. But when he left that on my link to my blog on International Women’s Day I was livid. I felt that I was very on point to pick from family, friends, and open the discussion that I did for that particular day.

Nobody else on LinkedIn posted on that particular post. I think I’m going to screenshot it, to save for posterity, and implode it.

I won’t be cross posting this one. It’s not business related anyway.

But it’s raw.

And it’s me.

And if I have the burning desire in 2 to 5 years to look back at where I was today or this week or this month, I will again be reminded that it is not narcissism to care about your history, your family, and yourself.

So, yeah, that’s the last thing I learned.

Everett, Logo Designs, and Consignment

Four months after moving to Seattle, an article was posted in the Seattle Times encouraging local artists to apply themselves to the task of a rough draft for a new logo for the neighboring city of Everett.

The idea intrigued me for a few different reasons.  One, my portfolio is slim in general, but I had been papercutting for years, and while my brother is way more talented than I am, I love doing artwork on a theme.  Two, I didn’t quite know exactly what made Everett different from Seattle at that point: it was all new to me.  Three, I once managed to win a competition at work as a teenager by being the only entrant.  I wasn’t sure what my odds were, but if they weren’t using a professional service, then they probably were looking for something different than the current public standard.

I set out to explore my new neighbor.  Their tourism page described Everett as a hub of burgeoning industry, with microbreweries and restaurants to visit, as well as being a staple to those working at Boeing by being so close to the facility.

My son and I did a few small trips into the area to get a feel for it.  I also decided to dig into the history as well, starting with my old familiar friend, the library.  I built a few drafts for myself – my favorite one was inspired by the streetlamps along Evergreen Way.  If you’ve ever seen them, they have this great asthetic, while still having a hint of straight-lined art nouveau.  They have a mellow green about them, faded, maybe?

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I made a vector-friendly Bookmobile image, but that would have been more for the library than for the public works division.  I looked for virtual or hard copies of it, but didn’t turn them up.

And there was one based on a common-domain image from the archives of a publication from around 1910.

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In the end, I don’t think I managed to submit any of the drafts before the deadline – I wasn’t satisfied with them and was treating job hunting as a full-time occupation.  (Without a scanner I had trouble editing the ones that I had.)

For what it’s worth: this link full of reactions really, REALLY does nothing for one’s confidence in trying to “freelance” until you have a portfolio post-college.

The real nail in the coffin was when the media and comments crucified the winning design.  The logo that was chosen was a design that happened to incorporate certain design elements that were extremely close to a corporate logo for Envestnet, a financial investment company.  I know it was a learning experience for everyone involved.

I can’t complain – it was something that was fun to get excited about, and was great to help wrap my head around the area I had moved to.  In the end, if I hadn’t attempted it, I don’t think I’d ever have had the confidence to put some of my work up for sale as prints and jewelry accessories in the “Spooked in Seattle” Consignment shop.

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(Speaking of which, Halloween is coming! Go on a ghost tour! Shameless plug!)

As for the Everett Public Works sector, it looks like they’ve quietly moved on to a new logo on their website (I found an article about it), which is fine:

It’s a very serene logo, and I’m thinking that they can probably leave it there for a long time – at least until the next logo sourcing competition, anyway.