Emerson on Consistency and Living 

I had a similar thought recently. We're so hell bent on figuring out "who we are" and "who we want to be", that we forget as humans we're fluid. Our interests, hobbies, actions everything. You can be invested in a hobby at some point of your life and then shift gears, lose interest in that hobby and be allowed to move on to another hobby. There's no need to box ourselves in. Change is inevitable. Might as well get used to it

"Pre-established identity is the enemy of authenticity" - Me

Consistency can be a good thing, but it can also lead to monotony. Life needs a healthy balance between constant movement and routine. Too much or too little; and life either becomes too chaotic or dull.

RC :a writer Also RC : Art is not my main thing

I've always been someone who regularly jumped between hobbies and interests. Up until a year ago I thought it was a bad thing, and that focusing my attention and energy on one hobby would be more beneficial. But now I also think that being a polymath is more beneficial for success and peace of mind. I always liked writing and I recently got into programming. Now I am planning on creating a platform online to publish short stories and interact with other writers. I've also always been into music and my love for literature makes it easier for me to write song lyrics.

Stop defining yourself by nouns (writer, designer). Use verbs. Don’t let these labels define you.

I’m a doctor but I think I let that get in the way & totally lost sight of my childhood creative abilities. So glad to be exploring them again! Thanks for this video!

All I can say is that life is a vibrant thing. It's colorful. We need a sprinkle of suprise, and bits of new things for the sake of adding color to our selves.

Things I've always wanted to try and to at least be consistent with improving on it. -Drawing and Calligraphy (Gonna be useful for notes and school activities) -Knitting (How lovely would it be to make knitted clothes as a gift to myself and love ones) -Writing (have always been my passion, what's left is to actually learn the art of writing and produce an output) -Language Learning (currently doing this but I wanna improve more on my English and to actually immerse myself in the languages I'm learning) -Outdoor Recreational Activities (There's a lot on my list but mountaineering and swimming are my top priority. I just learned how to ride a bike, and also is learning how to swim. I'm one of those who grew up not being able to maximize my pool and beach moments, and didnt actually learn how to properly swim.) - Make-up (Not really the girly-type and also a late bloomer. This interested me for a long time.) -Music (Learned to play the piano back in my youth days. I've missed the feeling so I definitely want to go back in playing instruments, also wanna try playing the drums.) -Dancing (I'm just the type who wants to move and hype my body. Not really a dancer but would love it to be able to at least learn some choreos and just take vids of myself and my friends dancing to some music.) At this point, I just wanna try anything new. Gonna leave this here for my future self to check.

That’s partly why I love grad school vs undergrad, because I have the space to pursue all my different interests. I major in viola and teach viola, but also TA for music theory, am a research assistant for African-American spirituals, and am researching K-pop for my first masters paper.

I don't write comments usually. But I want to say thank you for all the energy and passion you put into your videos. They are very inspiring.

I draw a lot in my life, and i became this "artist" person, but I almost forgot about my passion for piano, that i dropped due to not having enough time for drawing, studying and playing piano at the same time. I was "consistante" person who draws nearly everyday. Recently, I listened to Bach's "Fugue in g minor "little" BWV 578" and my inside passion for music sparked again, and I continued playing everyday. I think having versatile personality helps finding hidden or forgotten passions in you. Also good inspiration helps a lot. So, listen to Bach and good luck exploring your true authenticity :D R.C. Waldun, thank you for new great videos. Love from Kazakhstan :)

I've struggled a ton with moving away from an "academics first" mindset, and I'm hoping to be away from that struggle now that I've finally finished university. It's up to the point where if I'm not pushing the needle in something I find interesting, I feel I'm wasting the day - which by itself isn't a bad thing! However, now that the structure of schooling is gone, I've tried to create some of that structure in my day to day and it's ultimately leading towards me being a sadder person (e.g. AHHH I didn't do this math thing I told myself I would do, feelsbadman type of vibes). Thanks for this wake up call! I'll struggle to live intentionally instead of hiding under thinly veiled "challenges" and "structure".

I've been taking an intro course on edX, The Path to Happiness: What Chinese Philosophy Teaches us about the Good Life and I see an interesting parallel. At the very beginning, Puett speaks of Confucius. He notes the difference between habits and customs, and rituals. The first two are done relatively mindlessly. You say hello, please, and thank you. You fall in cycles, ruts: the bad side of consistency. On the other side of consistency are rituals. They require you to sense the world around you and determine the best course of action. No label, no rut, no habit, no fooling repetitions and obsessions. There is still an amount of consistency as rituals repeat themselves, but consistency then becomes an opportunity for growth. There is flexibility in the sense that when you sense the situation calls for some other behavior, you take the better course, by keeping an awareness.

And here I am trying to defend against people putting a specific label on me, I am not the person I was yesterday and I won't be the same person tomorrow, I want to change. I want to go on a adventure of change while preserve things about me I treasure. My identity isn't just writing, my identity isn't just a word, I want my identity to be ever changing. To let me be influenced by life. So it was comforting to know I wasn't alone in not wanting to be labeled and stuck in one decided persona. To anyone who stumble upon this- please don't shackle yourself, no matter how much you change, your worth won't decrease and letting yourself change is the only way you can learn

i would say that a lot of my skills that i have today came from practicing things for a little while, while i was interested in it (like editing, cinematography, writing etc...) then moving onto something else. these days i find that a lot of these skills are invaluable to what i spend my time doing now. my interest in philosophy, which seems at first entirely unrelated to the content i make, is actually the basis of what my current youtube channel is - though it is based on my hobbies. and this whole thing can only come into video form because of what i know and have learned about editing, cinematography, writing... etc. it's something that i dont think i would be able to even consider attempting if i didn't at least have this base knowledge already from simply learning the things that interested me in the past. i really agree that, as you mentioned, the combination of these things help support branching out into new avenues and finding that the combination of skills (rather than the consistency of simply one thing) is the key to creating that which feels really fulfilling in life.

Im so happy to have seen this video because honestly I have so many things I want to do and be, game designer, web designer, illustrator, concept artist, actor, voice actor, miniature painter, poet, author and they way the modern world lays it out is like you have to pick on and be done with it. So I go through these phases where I think 'ah yes, THIS is what I pick' but then a couple weeks down the line I think oh well I cant possibly do this and still do my drawing or my writing. It is nice to see someone else echo that no... you can do both, life is an experience. Whats the point in only experiencing a small part of it

my main interest is music: i play piano, and i've been recently getting into improvisation which is a fun break from just reading other people's music! since i also like performing, i've decided to start reading some books on acting to see if they can help me become better at showcasing emotion.

As soon as you started talking it reminded me of an excerpt from Nabokov's Lolita: "I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen «King Lear», never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. (…) Whatever evolution this or that character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus, X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We would prefer no to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen."

This man is one rare RU-vidr who never fails to surprise me by his unpopular opinions and advice. I've watched loads of videos on consistency and habits because I have too many things that I love and can't get myself to move forward with consistency in each one of em- Writing a novel, Drawing digital comics, Digital marketing, blogging, Writing poems, learning French and Writing on my french blog etc. It really beats me up because I always have to choose stuff from time to time. Thanks for saying that I can pick up stuff and merge them occasionally instead of sticking to one thing and getting it perfect before moving onto the next.

So many times I've heard youtubers say "I was obsessed with this as a kid!" And thought "I wish I had something like that. I've never really felt passionate about anything." Until recently, more and more, I realize that I was always trying to find the perfect words to use when writing a story or about my experiences. It dawned on me that literally EVERYONE has something like this. It might not be obvious at first, but if you let yourselve reconcile with your childself, not be so jealous of the time you spent goofing off, you'll begin to see patterns in the small things you did.

I'm going through a personal branding design and creation process at the moment and this was something that hit me today too, about really exploring different mediums of story. I love writing, and when you look outside of that to also tell a story through visual and digital mixed media it just adds this incredible potential and reality of seeing multiple perspectives of one thing. That's really exciting and only amplifies writing. I'm learning a lot about storytelling through design and UX design. Our brains learn in stories.

I needed some validation like this. It's hard to remember that I may not be the top of any field, but I am plenty proficient in multiple fields. The guilt over "not being the best" at something is really hard to win against.

I feel like I’ve been through that as well, and man, did you come in the right time. Especially with living indoors for forever, I’ve been struggling to find new ways to be sensitive to the world around me again. I feel like I’m doing the same assignments and doing the same interests. Hell, I even labeled myself an artist and forced myself to make a half baked comic. Anyways, this video makes me want to revive my sense of wonder as well

it’s 4:00 am and i caught this upload. glad to see you’re sponsored by skillshare🥸

I love how you are still finding yourself, it feels authentic!

Drawing , piano, baking, sculpting and photography

As a visual artist, and someone that likes to play piano and learn about music theory, I can assure all disciplines fed off each other. My art improves with something I learnt while on the piano and viceversa, or after learning about economy or history you can get inspiration for new projects and paintings.

i constantly come back to this channel because it always deals with things i feel but dont quite know how to describe yet

I think I understand what you’re saying. Consistently isn’t bad , but when we only stick to one idea of consistency is when we become foolishly consistent. We should be consistently doing things that make us better, consistently exploring he world around us, consistently not being stuck on just one idea. Not that I think routines are bad because when I didn’t have one. I would consistently get nothing done. But I don’t think we should be afraid to add new things to it.

I've recently been getting out of my comfort zone as an assumed outline writer. I have wanted to write for years, and with more effort in the last year have been struggling to get my writing off the ground. Now, I always having written off Steven King, (in a 'not for me' way, mind you) but recently in the spur of the moment had gotten the audiobook version of his "On Writing". It totally changed my perception on Stephen King, and my outlook on writing. It made me really want to try writing in the way he described, so I did. I've found it so freeing to be unbound during the writing process, and just being able to write whatever pops into my head as appropriate. Something he said really comes back to me, about how he likes to write fast enough to keep up with his imagination. I feel the same. P.S. Afterwards, I checked out his "Dark Tower" and really enjoyed it.

great video! Labels are really limiting. Oscar Wilde said something similiar, I don't remember exactly what he said but the main point was that you DO things, not BECOME things. For example, you are not a writer - you just write, that's what you do. You are not a painter, photographer, musician - you paint, you take photos and you write music. I feel like we have tendency to set goals of BECOMING someone, so we limit our actions only to the things that will help us achive this goal. Our "inner self" doesn't change when we take up another hobby, when we decide to change our job, opinions etc. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes, English isn't my first language 🤷‍♀️

I identify so much with this video, I been thinking a lot about it lately, and I've realized that I used to think about myself as a person open to the "stimulus" of life and world, but at some point, with the pandemic and quarantine, I became a person who encapsulated herself in a kind of routine and habits in order to have some control. But now everythig of this things are burned up because I've used them so much that my creativity has fallen asleep, and I can´t write as I would like. So, I'm trying new things and also, old things that I had forgotten that I used to do, and maybe they are simple but feel kind of fresh. Ps: I really like your videos, you talk about stuffs that I think need to be discussed

I think of Joni Mitchell... A true Renaissance Woman... Playing and singing the beautiful songs she wrote... And painting the covers of her albums... Each time I open the gatefold cover of Ladies of the Canyon I marvel at her talents...

I feel as if recently by us being constrained in our homes, we are able to sleep on this thought a bit more on the concept of consistency and what it really means. As well, I recently had to bid farewell to an ex friend who would not understand that we are all trying to find out what we are "being" only in the current moment. Life has endless of possibilities, and it is best you do not confine yourself to a box. Last but not least, never let someone do that for you. Growth at its best.

Everyone in the comment section are so amazing, well spoken and intelligent. Makes me feel a little dumb.

That moment happened a few years ago. I used to be a serious, no-nonsense type of person quite rigid, n yes caught in a routine. But now I'm excited to experiment new things and more than willing to go outside my comfort zone. That feels liberating Still serious type but at times I can be silly & goofy. As always the content is brief & concise

thought about this a lot during 2020. i graduated from high school this summer and i still have absolutely zero clue what i want to do now. right now, my consistency consists of staying at home all day and dwelling on my anxiety and my directionlessness. but i decided that i want to work on my (video)graphics art and music no matter what!! so 9:16 just really hit close to home. thanks for saying that :)

I found your chanel yesterday and I am obsessed . Plz don’t ever stop making videos❤️❤️❤️

OMGMGGG one of my favorites essays ever made... i was introduced to Emerson this year on my Literature Class and it was incredible how true the words written were and how much they made sense 100 plus years later. great video

I'm very thankful I've found your channel.

Congrats for the Skillshare ad! Your channel and your work is awesome and it is nice to see how it is growing :)

"we are what we repeatedly do .excellence then is not an act but a habit" pretty sure it's by Will Durant (not very sure) but this really makes me think how much i'm going to relay on my habits and safe spots and how much am i willing to step out of theme? i really like these new vids good job

I'm an engineer that recently discover her love for digital art, and that made me question myself a lot; I'm still struggling but this video helped me so much! Thank you! 💖

this is a really helpful video. i've been struggling to identify what i am because i constantly shift between writing, painting, drawing, and music. there's no term to communicate "hey i'm all of those things" but these vids help to remind me that our environment insists that we fill a mold, even though that mold does not actually exist. they've inspired me to just learn and express myself without pressure of identification, thank you

hi rc waldun! i've been loving your content ever since i discovered your channel a few weeks ago. during the middle months of 2020, i was in such a foolish consistency mindset. life felt so dreary and pointless, like everything was out of my grasp. only recently have i rediscovered a new curiosity for life. this new curiosity motivated me to start reading, reallyyyyy listening to music, and jogging around my neighborhood! thank you for sharing your knowledge with the world through these videos! i really enjoy them.

I think skillshare sponsor every youtuber I like, Thank you skillshare

Great to see you getting brand partners! Good luck for the future.

Something to ponder as we consider the role of routines and habits in our lives; from Franz Kafka: "Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be counted on beforehand, and it becomes a part of the ceremony."

you don’t know how much I needed to hear this. thank you. I will watch this every morning now.

Waldun can you do a video on consciousness ? and when a normal time to become extremely conscious is ? what it means ? im a 16 year old boy who has recently "awakened" . i feel superior compared to other people and i hate that i feel this way . im going through some phase where its really hard to contain my desperate need for admiration. i often find myself scratching to join in on conversations and saying what i think would be the best opinion . how can i get through this ? did you go through this ? i would love some advice !

I’m so glad I’m here

Hello, I really love how all your videos always come in time in my life and just that there's a person that shares the same struggles with me. Recently I understood that I had that trap where I wanted to do some art, photography, even writing( that I left as useless hobby somewhere in 2018), but even if I plan and try to set something from it as routine, I fail, because I cannot just leave all my uni tasks because I feel that I have a certain level of effort there and I just can't put less. And with doing the same thing for the last four years and now doing it intensively, I promised myself to rest, but I sometimes feel guilty when I do, I'm currently working on this, because photography and art really give me lot, and being inspired but not allowing yourself to do art is like a torture. So, thank you for doing what you do, definetely one of the most interesting channels there.

I just love the way you speak. It's very pleasant to listen to you. I say this as someone for whom English is not their first language. And yes, greetings from Russia!

although I agree with what you say about habits, after having gone through an online semester and having almost no schedule and working at odd times throughout the day, the first thing I want to do right now is develop habits and consistency

As an addendum to your original quote: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.” -W.W.

I used to write poetry a lot. Since primary school. My teachers and friends will always look for me if they need a poem script for they loved one or for the competition. Then reality hits, idk i feel like i have to focus and studying in my major hard and harder. Then I lost that kind of sensitivity on writing poem. I can still feel it everytime I read other's poem but I can't write it anymore, years untill now. Guess I found the answer in this video. Glad to find it.

Funny you mention starting a RU-vid channel cause that's what I did (and you're a big inspiration for me starting it!) I'm on a weird personal journey where I'm both expanding into new and unrelated topics (like content creation under my own name, sharing my opinions with the general public, and learning a new language) and returning to old aspects of my identity that I lost contact with years ago (like my fascination with fantasy/sci-fi or fight choreography). Currently watching more Netflix and watching all the Star Wars movies & TV shows out there. It's weird how much I'm enjoying it and how it's affecting my creativity. It's an odd dichotomy of sorts: on one hand, there are aspects of my identity that remain constant, some change into new things, and some return after leaving them for a while. It's hard to put into words, but with the addition of new aspects of my identity as well as returning to my roots, I feel more like myself than I have in a while.

These days I'm having are too spontaneous. Everyday is a new structure.

This channel inspire me to be a better person and for that i thank you RC. Enjoy your journey my friend.

I'm interested in making art and in writing. I went to a high school for the visual arts, and honestly my passion for art simmered down as I went through it. I forgot that the reason i loved art was because I liked comics and anime and creating stories and characters with meaning. Now I've recently rediscovered this little passion of mine and i'm adding fuel to the fire for it. Writing and art go together for me. And even though I'm a psychology major, I want to write creatively and make art. I don't want to be limited by a label or an expectation.

It might be comforting to have labels. Words and principles that indicate you how to behave and what to become. It can get really sickening though. I also always labeled myself as a writing person and because of that I never practiced drawing that much. Now I'm progressively throwing my labels and just try to do whatever gets my curiosity

This video comes just in the perfect time for me because I'm feeling so lost and have a lot of doubts about what I like and what I want to do. I was thinking something similar: I've always loved and wanted to make music but what if I try other things too? I like various ways of art, maybe I could try and learn more about them not just music... I don't have to define myself in one place and leave everything else aside, 'cause I'm interested in so many things!

I entirely agree. Limiting the breadth of your interests limits the scope of your perspective. It wrecks your ability to not only understand yourself but the people around you as well.

This channel is so good. RC has brought me back into reading. The consistency thing works for reading and I am reading everyday. Gonna wait everyday for more content like this :D

Thank you for your content, I agree with this, I've been defined by my relatives by the awards i achieved, I win because I have to follow a certain category that would please the judges, as I grew up those awards won't make much of a difference and avoids me from being progressive, I mean, I wish some people could see the beauty and joy of being experimental.

I had the same progression as you, but in reverse. I fell in love with pictures and images and paintings before falling in love with words or books. One thing I cannot detach myself however is stories and emotions and stories of details. I guess it is the lense I've always looked through. Don't know if that will change.

I'm only 3 minutes into your video, and I already find it so interesting. I realized that my life and personal growth have gotten more fulfilling since I've stopped torturing myself to fit a certain amount of "molds". Like, I was actually upset about not being able to describe myself as an "introvert"/" extrovert", or more generally with adjectives that could encapsulate me, as a person; create an "essence". Though this created a safe bubble, a "comfort zone" it also prevented me from exploring life and learning. Confirmation bias can be a good thing tho, I find it useful to reinforce one's self-confidence, and crucial in kids' development. Sinon, j'ai vu que tu apprenais le français; alors voilà un petit message d'encouragement haha!

You may like to check out the work of Joe Sacco. He is a journalist who tells stories from the frontline through graphic novels as his medium.

I stumbled onto your channel at the most perfect time in my life.

The comment you made on focusing on the mastery instead of a good story....I also faced that same issue. With fanfiction and blogs, it was easy for me to write because it was solely about the story, not being good or great. And in turn, those would end up great with great reception. But when it came time for me to try my hand at a book I wanted to professionally publish under one of the big names (I've already published under pseudonyms), I found I became so enraptured with "telling a lesson" or "appealing to a certain audience" or writing a "professional book" that the story just got lost along the way. Everything I wrote was cliche mediocre and overdone. The minute I stopped caring about all that shit was the minute the writing became better!

If you are getting into urban sketching I would highly recommend James Richards' Skillshare classes on it. They are highly informative, entertaining, and have helped my urban sketches a lot!

Well I get interested in everything I get myself into which leads me to do nothing most of the time and being obsessed about something for like a week every once in a while

this ties in very nicely with some thinking i've been doing lately on imposter syndrome...

I'm trying to follow a counterintuitive artistic path I'm a 3d artist (learning) and with a big passion for math (geometry and topology) and I want to learn how to make music : )

Ah yes the positive feedback loop.

So the moral of the story: have big bren energy

Thank you for this video you definitely made me to rethink and contemplate some of my habits.

wait🥺 you're making visual art now. that makes me so happy wtf.

I saw some paints and pallette knives on your ig post, I'm looking forward on your art projects. You are very creative! I like everything you said here, made me fall into deep thinking ...

Just discovered your channel. Amazing job man, thanks.

just found your channel and have been watching your videos and by your shots you must be living in Melbourne??? I'm shocked but it also fits your vibe

“We all have that one person in our lives…” it’s me. That person in my life is me. My toxic trait is imposing self-limits.

For an advocate of balance R. C Waldun is up too early or too late. 😅

You mention about the park bench and it reminds of a french comic book artist called Christopher Chaboute, that have a comic called Park Bench, beautiful stuff. You should check out some european comics and some non mainstream american ones, there're some amazing stuff.

If you're interested in the New Yorker covers, you should check out the first episode of a documentary series on Netflix called Abstract! The first episode follows a Berlin-based illustrator for the New Yorker as he goes through his creative process. The series is also really well put together, each episode following a different creative professional.

I never have enough energy to be consistent

Consistency and Identity are important if you actually want to make smth of yourself tho... Like an actual career. If we're talking about just hobbies then I definitely agree. But when it comes to a career even if it is smth like becoming a writer, which is more unrestrained, you need to have a more specified Identity so that people can differentiate u from the crowd and consistency in order to produce your work. I mean, inspiration isn't the only thing needed to write a book after all. I'm into writing myself and I've only recently come to the conclusion that inspiration isn't even the most important part of it.

Thanks for this video R.C! I'm following you only since few days and I'm litteraly watching all your videos ahah! It's actually the first time I see someone talk about self discovery trough books and intuition wich I'm trying to do since few months now. I felt a bit weird to have sudden passions but now It feels like I'm not alone, it's really encouraging! Personnaly I'm an Illustrator and sometimes I have like sudden visons of a drawing while doing something else. Is it the same for you on writing? Also I recently have a passion for Sewing, the country of Mongolia, and Lady Oscar while I've never been interested in it before! I always have this little voice like: "Why are you interested in this? You're gonna waste time on your drawing practice!" Unfortunatly it's hard to not listen this voice. But I start to feel more and more confident about my intuitions so I'm very thanksfull for that!

I love to write. I love to draw. I love to read. It's time to make these skills work for me.

I’m just in the pursuit of all things storytelling/art so hoping I can do the basics of most mediums whenever need be, experienced or not.

I might say that my consistency and indentity was destroyed by the pandemic and i dont even know who i am anymore. Its pretty sad but, when it all ends - descovering me as a completly new person, almost a stranger? Gosh, that is going to be interesting.

I love ur videos so much🥺

This is really good! I'm trying to write a book and RU-vid.

People find meaning and growth living in between order and chaos

Bro, you need to make a podcast, maaaan

I am hordcore in love with physics and literature

Господи, твой канал просто находка, я влюбилась 😍😍😍 (You have a very cool youtube channel)

Where did you buy these notebooks I love them

Okay this was really helpful, good vibes. Cool vid✨✨