1000 days

1000 days project

"We are what we repeatedly do"

Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926)

The 1000 day project is my attempt to steer myself consciously towards the things that are most important to me.

Every day for 1000 days I will work towards my goals in a structured way. I will be posting daily updates on this website.

The 1000 day project runs from 26th December 2015 to the 21st September 2018, which is my 30th birthday.

In the past I have successfully completed two 100 day projects (100 portraits in 2010 and 100 blogs in 2011). In 2012 I spent 1000 hours drawing and painting.

Day 0126

Slept late thanks to the sensory deprivation chamber that is my room (after everyone has finished slamming doors on their way to work that is). Sat in the park and let the world go by. Popped down to the beach and then dashed to the Picasso museum before it closed.

Very interesting to see his early work. I didn't realise he was academically trained. Very proficient from an extremely young age. Well-handled realistic portraits as a teenager. Lovely landscape studies on bits of wood. Can see why he changed style so many times and needed something fresh: the path he was on to begin with has been bottomed out. No matter how good you get at academical, realist painting it has all been done before.

After Picasso and all the movements I've learned about in The Shock of the New videos (the last of which I finished yesterday), is there any point in trying to find a new path in art? Is there any stone left unturned? I think not but I've still worked on my boring copy tonight, in a characteristically bloody minded and pointlessly unthinking way.

Day 0125

Had planned on visiting the Picasso museum today, but got waylayed by the Cathedral. Beautiful cloister with trees, fountains and thirteen geese. Planned on a place for dinner, waylayed by a pizzeria. Having plans and abandoning them is fun.

Drowning in the cacophony of lives I'm intersecting with. More so than in New York. So many people with heads full of thoughts and unknowable feelings and aspirations. Such a crowd, I never suspected they existed and yet they're all out there somewhere tonight. Too many, what are they all for? Seven billion and all with a little ceaselessly chattering voice in their heads. So loud but no one can hear anyone else's!

Day 0124

Walked around the Park Güell. Worked. Thought about the illusion that one works towards an end state. It never comes! All there is is change and transition.

Day 0123

Walking around Barcelona, sitting in the sun and contemplating.

Saw video of a Russian sable fur farm where the sable are madly jumping around their tiny cages in a frenzy of despair. Constantly moving, no escape and no change. Reminded me of an armadillo I saw in a zoo running around in a figure of eight, over and over again.

Compare our routines, repeated the world over.