"Genius and Madness are often separated by degrees of success."

A line I have lived with since I was in my teens. Who would've thought after fetching that #MTG card called "Inspiration," these words would still echo until this day.

I'm not here to talk about Magic. As I write this, my camera is facing a lake and is exposing, and I felt it was a good time to start typing ideas on my phone while waiting.

Over the course of the past few weeks, I've been on a roll, because inspiration struck me since hearing some good news from a friend after coming home from my trip to Japan. I have to say, it was the spark I need to reignite my passion for creating art. Since then, I've revisited old photos and reprocessed them with various techniques I've acquired and learned by studying people's works. It was also a good exercise to display multiple styles and pick the good ones to add to my own arsenal.

I've gone to multiple trips this first quarter: Japan, Tingloy in Batangas, Bataan, and Laguna. I'm hoping to get to more places to find more inspiration and satisfy my ideas.

Often times, we get confused with what's right, or beautiful regarding our works. While it's nice to get appreciation or "likes" in this day and age, the best person to actually please is ourselves. We have to have ideas and the right tools to bring them to life. It's different if you're still learning the techniques because it's part of the process of coming up with an output. Thus, meeting new people, asking questions, learning from them and mimicking their style is somewhat inevitable, because you'll never know if it will work for you (or not) if you don't try it. Just like what Niv-Mizzet said: "Don't just have an idea—have all of them."

Art, to me, is often unique by intention. Sure, you may copy another person's style to get to a finished work but everybody needs a basis for their technique. When you find a technique, you start creating your own method to madness because the final product should always justify your thoughts, and thoughts are unique to one's self. It's not an imitation. it's your own rendition; a vision—to which you see a certain idea that transforms into an expression; which transforms into figure, then to an artform. To be humble in your thoughts of creation is different from plagiarism, for plagiarism intends to steal rather than glorify.

In the end, we do what we are. We create what we intend, so long as we are ready to learn what we need to.

Thanks for reading.