{"id":2144,"date":"2019-11-03T18:09:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T16:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2022-11-15T20:36:52","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T18:36:52","slug":"112019-if-youre-going-through-hell-keep-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/2019\/11\/112019-if-youre-going-through-hell-keep-going\/","title":{"rendered":"112019: If You\u2019re Going Through Hell, Keep Going"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"November<\/figure>\n

Partly stressed, partly depressed, with a tiny spark of excitement, I am sitting in front of an empty slide deck. It\u2019s some rainy weekend in October, and I am supposed to give a talk about my work during the upcoming week. I am paralyzed.<\/p>\n

I used to give presentations quite frequently; I would even say that it used to be one of my best-trained designer muscles. But during that weekend I noticed how rusty I\u2019ve gotten; how tricky I found it to draw a line without an actual pencil; and how shaky my voice gets while it peeks on the speaker notes. On the other hand: I really, genuinely enjoy it. I love talking about design, about an idea or a craft or a process, drawing that story line and deciding what\u2019s worth saying and what isn\u2019t. I just haven\u2019t done it in a very long time.<\/p>\n

So, as I am sitting at my desk, blank page horror in full blossom, I text my friend Ralf about my sorrows. He reminds me of a very basic wisdom: \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t work, keep doing it\u2014it\u2019ll come to you eventually.\u201d If you\u2019re going through hell, keep going.<\/em>\u00a0It sounds cheesy, plain and overly dramatic, but drama helps, ffs sake; emotions help!,<\/em>\u00a0and it has a whole lot of truth to it. In the end, that stroll through hell saved me yet again: After I finished the slides and after the presentation was given and when I allowed myself to be relieved, I noticed: Wow, It\u2019s good to be reunited with something I really like. Winning that spark back wasn\u2019t as hard after all, it just felt so for a little part of the way.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Speaking of speaking: In October, I was invited by StanHema<\/a> to talk about my design work and its relation to writing and text. That was fun, because as as we all know: Design is writing is design,<\/em>\u00a0and sorting and sharing all these connections in my head was really motivating and eye-opening.<\/p>\n

I also noticed that this September marked my 10-year-anniversary in Berlin. I\u2019ve always imagined to write a huge thinkpiece on how this city changed me, my life, my believes etcetera yada yada, so that in the end, I just published a list of random thoughts.<\/a><\/p>\n

Learned about myself: I\u2019m really into poetry. Actually I\u2019ve always been, I just didn\u2019t want to admit it, and I only like the weird stuff. And Rilke.<\/a><\/p>\n

Even more links: I enjoyed this documentary<\/a> about elderly people who speed-date (German); I learned a lot about Susan Sontag in this article<\/a> about writing her biography; and I always admire Robert Riegers<\/a> photography and especially his instagram posts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019re all on a safe stroll off of any hell-like trails, but if you\u2019re in the thick of one: Keep going! Have a blissful start into November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Partly stressed, partly depressed, with a tiny spark of excitement, I am sitting in front of an empty slide deck. It\u2019s some rainy weekend in October, and I am supposed to give a talk about my work during the upcoming week. I am paralyzed. I used to give presentations quite frequently; I would even say … 112019: If You\u2019re Going Through Hell, Keep Going<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1206,1200],"tags":[41,2,43],"class_list":["post-2144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christels-corner","category-gefuehlslagen","tag-english","tag-text","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2149,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions\/2149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christowski.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}