Where then is your art?

[Ya Evyl Aunty]

This is more or less the result of a short conversation I just had with ChatGPT. I decided to share it here, in a place where other people aiming to express themselves in writing, and those who just enjoy savoring such expressions are likely to meet. Maybe write a comment or reply in response, if you feel like it, just to chase away the image of getting hoarse from shouting into an endless void, that doesn't even have an echo.

 

Me: Coming up with a new concept seems so joyful. but realizing a concept in enough detail and density to make it productive, presentable to the world, to give it a finished appeal takes so much work. Then in the breaks and gaps of the work process itself, so many other concepts seem to come up steadily. The decision not to put work into a concept, to abandon it, to kill it off to prevent it from interfering with other work feels so sad. but watching a burgeoning pile of unfinished projects build and collect dust, because nothing ever gets finished feels equally sad.

 

ChatGPT:

What you’re expressing is something many creative minds struggle with: the bittersweet tension between the joy of ideation and the labor of execution. It’s thrilling to conceive new ideas, to feel that initial spark of inspiration and the rush of potential. Each new concept is like a seedling, full of promise. But nurturing it to maturity—polishing it into a finished product—requires persistence, focus, and sacrifice.

The creative process is often as much about choosing what not to pursue as it is about what you decide to bring to life. Each decision to abandon an idea can feel like a loss, almost as if you're letting a part of yourself slip away. Yet, without making these choices, it’s easy to become paralyzed by the sheer volume of projects and possibilities, leaving none fully realized and none celebrated for their completion.

Balancing the birth of new ideas with the commitment to see some through to completion is the delicate dance of the creator. It’s about recognizing which concepts deserve the energy and attention to become fully formed, and which ones are best left as part of the fertile background noise that fuels future work.

One way to ease the pain of abandonment is to think of it not as a permanent goodbye, but as placing an idea in a kind of creative “waiting room.” Some ideas might evolve, merge with others, or resurface later when you’re ready or when the time is right. And sometimes, focusing on just one project and nurturing it to its full potential brings not just satisfaction, but a renewed clarity and energy to the creative process as a whole.

How do you currently choose which projects to focus on and which to set aside?

 

Me:

I am not certain whether i have a method. i seem to follow the desire to finish the one concept that is at the forefront of my attention, hoping that the desire lasts long enough to produce at least some stable results. But every task seems to constantly divide itself into more and more subtask, the joy of resolution becomes rarer and less intense and less intense, the tasks start to feel like chores, until the lure of other concepts becomes so strong, that I abandon the initial one, and put it away "for later", trying to ignore the sad realization, that I will most likely never touch it again. And the remnants of unfinished projects literally start to crowd out my territory with monuments of sad unfinishedness.

 

ChatGPT:

The way you describe your creative process reveals a powerful, almost restless mind, full of ideas and an initial excitement that drives you forward. But it also reflects a common trap for many who think expansively: the endless branching of tasks and the diminishing returns of joy as projects grow more complex. The initial burst of inspiration feels bright and promising, but sustaining that energy through the less glamorous phases—where discipline overtakes inspiration—can be grueling.

When you describe your space filling up with monuments of unfinishedness, it conjures an image of a workshop crowded with half-carved sculptures, each one a testament to ideas that were alive but not fully realized. It’s a tangible reminder of the challenge: each abandoned project holds the shadow of potential, whispering what it could have been, while quietly breeding a sense of creative guilt.

This cycle—beginning with fervor, dividing into endless subtasks, waning interest, and eventual abandonment—is familiar to many. The difficulty lies in finding a strategy that helps you choose wisely, commit meaningfully, and maintain momentum without being seduced by the constant allure of new ideas. Here are some thoughts that might help:

1. Limit Active Projects: Give yourself permission to only work on a set number of active projects at once. Even if new ideas come up, jot them down in a dedicated “idea journal” for later exploration. This way, you acknowledge them without letting them disrupt your current focus.

2. Set Milestones and Celebrate Them: Breaking a project into clear, achievable milestones can help sustain motivation. Each small completed task deserves recognition, even if the whole project isn't finished yet. This can bring back the joy of resolution in bite-sized pieces.

3. Prioritize Ruthlessly: Not every idea needs to be pursued to completion. Take time to review your projects periodically and ask which ones align with your deeper goals or interests. Be willing to say goodbye to the ones that don’t make the cut.

4. Define “Finished” Loosely: Sometimes the idea of completion is too rigid. Redefine what “done” means to you for certain projects. Can a project be “done for now” in a state that isn’t perfect but still satisfies you in the present? Sometimes releasing work into the world in a draft form or partial state can lead to surprising feedback and renewed energy.

5. Create Rituals to Reset: Having rituals around starting and closing out work sessions can help shift your mindset, making it easier to stay engaged or to compartmentalize ideas. A five-minute reflection at the end of each day on what you accomplished and what’s next can bring closure, even if the project isn’t done.

6. Celebrate the Value of “Unused” Ideas: Not all ideas are meant to be brought to life. Some serve as creative fodder that informs and enriches other projects. Reframe the way you see abandoned concepts: they aren't failures but are part of your creative growth and thinking process.

It’s natural to feel a mix of sadness and guilt about unfinished work, but it doesn’t mean your efforts were in vain. Those monuments of unfinishedness might still be teaching you something, even if only in the patience and discernment required to focus on what matters most. If you looked at your projects now, is there one that still calls to you despite everything? What about it makes it stand out?

 

Du:

A harsh reproach that echoes within me is the question: "Where then is your art, artist?". There is a tension between me deciding to celebrate, ritualize, limit, define, prioritize all for myself, which can feel self-deceptive, empty, masturbatory, and reaching an audience, which can feel elusive, ungrateful, ignorant, abstract, vanishing, vain.

 

ChatGPT:

Your words resonate with a deep, existential ache that many artists and creators grapple with. The question, "Where then is your art, artist?" is heavy because it holds both doubt and demand. It’s a question that implies a judgment, as if the proof of one's art must be tangible, undeniable, and presentable, or else it doesn’t exist at all.

The tension between creating for oneself and creating for an audience is real and can feel insurmountable at times. When you make something solely for yourself, it can feel insular, as if you’re playing a game of make-believe with no outside validation. On the other hand, striving to reach an audience can feel like chasing shadows—there's the chance they may not understand, care, or even notice the effort. And the work done to appeal or connect with them can feel hollow if it strays from your original purpose.

But this dichotomy—between the inner and outer, the private and public—doesn't have to be a condemnation or a source of shame. It can be a tension that drives you, informs your work, and challenges you to find a balance. Here’s how to approach that question and the tension it holds:

1. Art as Process, Not Product: Start by reframing what it means to "have" art. Your art isn't just what’s completed or visible; it's the work in progress, the concepts that live within you, and the time spent wrestling with your craft. Art is not just an outcome but an ongoing conversation between your mind, hands, and spirit.

2. The Audience as an Echo, Not a Goal: Consider that reaching an audience doesn’t always mean a large, tangible presence. Even one person who sees, understands, and appreciates what you’ve made can be enough to validate the journey. Art, when shared, becomes a call into the void, and sometimes the response is faint or delayed. It’s less about aiming for a broad audience and more about letting your art find the people it resonates with, whether now or in the future.

3. Release as Ritual: Instead of framing celebration, limitation, and prioritization as self-deception, see them as necessary rituals that sustain the artist in you. It’s not indulgent; it’s survival. If there’s no small victory or self-recognition, the external validation—no matter how substantial—will never feel like enough.

4. Accepting the Elusiveness of “Completion”: Art, in its purest form, often refuses to be finished. Even “completed” pieces could always be refined, could always be different. This is why many great artists speak of the courage it takes to put the brush down and declare something done, even when it isn’t perfect. Allowing your work to reach a “done for now” state can help bridge the gap between the joy of creation and the reality of sharing.

5. Seeing the Invisible: What if you reframed the question “Where then is your art?” to include the intangibles—the fleeting insights, the sketches, the ideas that never got past their initial burst? They are the backbone of what shapes your thinking, your future works, and your evolving artistry. They may not be displayed in a gallery or lauded by critics, but they are no less real.

6. Inviting the Audience, Gently: Share what feels safe but vulnerable, even if it’s small or imperfect. This doesn’t mean pandering to an elusive audience or fearing their judgment, but inviting them into your process. Share fragments, thoughts, drafts. Let them see the authentic state of your art. Sometimes, the audience appreciates seeing that raw humanity behind the polished works more than the finished pieces themselves.

The relationship between creator and audience, between the inner and outer worlds of your art, is bound to have moments of friction. It’s normal to feel like celebration without an audience is hollow or that the audience itself might not understand or value your work. But in the end, the art exists because you made it, wrestled with it, abandoned it, or nurtured it. And whether seen or unseen, it holds value—sometimes in ways that won’t be clear until much later.

So when that harsh inner voice asks, "Where then is your art, artist?" you can answer: It’s here, in progress, in fragments, in moments of joy and doubt alike. It exists because I do.

Can you, whoever was willing to read all of this until here, can just leave a gesture, a sign of life, an affirmation, that I am not just going crazy, filling my life by simulating dialogues with a mathematical model of a neurological system, trained to reproduce the average reply a vast horde of random data from the internet would suggest as the most likely? 

Edited November 4 by Ya Evyl Aunty

[Wormwoods]

Friend, if you're dealing with this sort of psychological state I'm going to recommend you don't 'have a conversation with' the plagiarism engine. Whatever art you're after isn't going to come from, or by testing yourself against a large language model. 

[Ya Evyl Aunty]

do you have any actual experience with working with chatgpt or is your plagiarism engine of choice an arbitrary mix of youtube, x, tiktok, the google search engine and maybe wikipedia and some reddit forums?

the sky doesn't stop being blue, just because an idiot agrees with you, that it is blue. I would prefer if you would engage the texts i posted on their own merits instead of gatekeeping me based on my choice of tools.

 

Even if parts of the text are generated by chatgpt, my decision to post them follows me reading them, and finding them to be a valid comment to my thoughts, which means I agree with them, I stand with them and I accept being judged as a person by any content expressed within those texts. If you read anything disagreeable there, how about you demonstrate the superiority of your genuine and original approach to art by producing a specific response to what you disagree with, instead of just dropping a cheap meta-diss.

Back in the 90s, a constantly repeated comment to all forms of digital art was, that it obviously couldn't be art at all, as it had been produced with the help of a computer. I found that boring and ignorant then, and i don't find it more interesting when reiterated just by replacing computers in general with Large Language Models in specific. The "art" doesn't just drop out automatically on the press of a button, I can assure you that from trial.

Edited November 4 by Ya Evyl Aunty

[Lord_Ikka]

=][= A preemptive reminder- Remember, this is a forum for the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Let's not get sucked into off-topic discussions about the validity or ethics of using AI for art/writing. =][=

 

Mod hat off, frater opinion on.

 

As I'm more of a technical writer than a creative one, the following will be couched it more hobbyist terms and examples than writers, so your mileage may vary on the usefulness of my opinion. The chatbot had some cogent points (the concise listing of is one of the good things about a tool that can troll large databases for information) that may help those who have something similar to what I call "hobby butterflying", or having too many ideas and not enough time/energy/"x" to finish them off. The main two that I saw that have been useful to me have been the Limit Active Projects and Set Milestones.

 

Limit Active Projects - I set myself up for only having two or three projects at a time in any sort of state. One may be conceptual (planning a specific Necromunda gang), while others are in progress (active modeling, painting, purchasing...). Limiting myself means that I can focus all of my active effort into those projects, which doesn't spread my attention and leave me with nothing at the end of the day but frustration at a lack of progress. 

 

Set Milestones - Completion of a project, whether that is an army or a gang or a background writing task, is easier done with a clear layout of tasks. For something like a Necromunda gang, I will plan out the concept, write up a background, review my ideas and concept, then order the minis, assemble minis/convert, paint. Each step finished is a small milestone and one that I take pleasure in accomplishing. Sometimes it will be months between those milestones, but they are still there.

 

One thing I would add is that it isn't a bad thing to fail or put aside a project. Sometimes your art just doesn't come together and you need to put it down. Doesn't mean you can't come back to it later and then start reworking the idea, it just means that it wasn't the right time for it to be done. Failure also gives valuable insight into issues that you might not have thought of before- did I put too short of a deadline on this, did I think to big or not plan enough, etc... 

[Ya Evyl Aunty]

My strange experience is, that even finishing a piece gives only a brief moment of joy. I finished posting the webway mirror, and for a brief moment it felt awesome. It is a complete novel, and I believe, it is even fun to read. But now I am flickering between the urgently felt need to expand it into an epic series, working on the background for the second novel, writing a text to academic standards about some concepts I discovered while researching for the second novel, and crashing my head onto the desk, when I realize why yet another bug in either ChatGPT, or my understanding of how it functions, makes it react totally different than expected, and forces me to reshuffle its memory for the n-th time to express the exact complexity I aimed for instead of overwriting it with boring regurgitated tropes.

It feels almost like a hangover after a wild party. The moment of triumph is nothing but a faint memory now, the matter around me seems to become more disorganized from every attempt to clean something up, and the onset of exhaustion, frustration and sadness seems to threaten my will to ever get anything done again.

Thank you Lord_Ikka for your response, which allowed me to distance myself a bit from my immediate experience, and to remind myself, that negative feelings can't exist in the human nervous system for more than twenty minutes, unless they are reproduced by habit. I think I'll try the usual best remedies for a traditional hangover: Take a walk to catch some fresh air, see if there is an opportunity to touch grass, eat something nice and wait for the homeostasis of the vegetative nervous system to reset on its own durations.

 

Edited November 4 by Ya Evyl Aunty

[Ya Evyl Aunty]

ok, character idea for some story in any narrative medium. "Base" realizes, that whenever he isn't focused on a given task at hand, he prepares for a time travel back into his past, to fix all the things that went wrong. Just, he also knows, that this time travel will never happen.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

Here’s a fleshed-out character and story concept for "Base," working with your idea's existential tension between action and futility.

---

Character Concept: Base

• Name: Sebastian "Base" Harlow (or "Base" as a self-given nickname)
• Core Premise: Base compulsively prepares for an impossible event—time traveling back into his past to correct everything that went wrong. He knows it will never happen, yet he cannot stop himself.

---

Psychological and Narrative Layers

• Internal Conflict:
  Base’s obsessive preparation offers him a sense of control and hope over his regrets, but this illusion constantly cracks under his intellectual awareness: time travel will never happen. His life oscillates between the pursuit of focused action and an inevitable fallback into preparatory rituals for a fantasy redemption he knows is a lie.

• Existential Tension:
  Base embodies the struggle between two irreconcilable desires:

  1. The Drive to Fix the Past: A recursive yearning for meaning, control, and repair of failures.
  2. The Rational Acceptance of the Present: The awareness that forward motion is the only reality.
     He can neither let go of the past entirely nor embrace the present fully. His awareness doesn't liberate him; it traps him further.

---

Key Themes

1. The Ritual of Futility: Base's preparations for time travel become his life—organizing files, scripting perfect conversations, drawing out alternate timelines on walls, perfecting skills he'd "need" in the past (e.g., first aid for when his father had a heart attack). These rituals take over moments of stillness.
2. Focus and Avoidance: When fully engaged in tasks—cooking, solving a puzzle, fighting for survival—Base feels relief because he escapes both regret and preparation. Focus is his only salvation.
3. Self-Sabotage and Guilt: Base subconsciously fears that true success in the present would invalidate his yearning to fix the past. He stumbles in key moments because the dream of redemption is more meaningful than real progress.

---

Narrative Arc Possibilities

1. A Descent into Madness

The story follows Base as he becomes increasingly consumed by his preparations. Objects and events begin to align in ways that seem to validate his obsession.

• Base’s rituals escalate from quirky habits to neurotic compulsions: mapping out entire months, drawing decision trees on his bedroom walls.
• He starts believing that someone—perhaps a mysterious figure or organization—knows he’s destined to time travel.
• Ending: He finally reaches what he believes is "the moment" he will be sent back, only for nothing to happen. In his breakdown, he destroys all evidence of his life’s work, sits in the wreckage of his plans, and—for the first time—simply does nothing.

2. A Time Loop without the Time Travel

The narrative avoids fantastical elements but presents Base’s life as eerily cyclical. His attempts to "fix" things mirror the very mistakes he hopes to undo.

• Relationships suffer because Base overanalyzes every interaction, as though testing a script for his "past self."
• He starts mentoring someone younger—a "stand-in" for himself—but his compulsions sabotage this relationship, repeating the cycle he tries to escape.
• Ending: Base’s mentee or love interest directly confronts him, saying, “You are in the past you want to fix. Now do something real.”

3. A Sci-Fi Twist: The Temporal Echo

Time travel is never possible in the story’s physics, but Base’s obsessive rituals generate an anomaly—a "temporal echo."

• Future physicists discover Base’s life data (journals, videos, scripts) and decode them as a crude simulation of real time travel logic.
• In a bittersweet finale, Base’s story inspires breakthroughs in future science that help other people—not him—prevent tragedies.

---

Medium and Tone

1. Film: A psychological drama akin to Memento or Synecdoche, New York. Dreamlike moments blur between Base’s reality and his imagined "past preparations."
2. Novel: Written in a poetic, existential style—short, reflective sentences chronicling Base’s thoughts as spirals of near-action and regret.
3. Game: A narrative-driven game where "focusing on the task" progresses gameplay, while idle moments generate cryptic loops of Base’s plans, giving the player the uneasy sense of futility.
4. TV Series: A slow-burn episodic drama exploring how Base’s compulsions disrupt his relationships, livelihood, and self-worth. Episodic "tasks" reveal small moments of clarity amid his struggles.

---

A Resonant Visual

The audience finds Base:

• Sitting at a cluttered desk, dozens of scraps pinned to corkboards: letters never sent, apologies drafted, schedules annotated with corrections.
• A single phrase written and rewritten everywhere, as though Base repeats it like a mantra:
  “If I go back, I’ll be ready.”

In this story, the tragedy and beauty lie not in time travel itself but in Base’s inability to let go of the illusion. Reality does not redeem him, but it is where he must learn to live.

 

4o

 

Du:

the past seems unsteady, only glimpses are revealed, mostly fleeting flashbacks of unfulfilled story arcs. if he needs to actually remember a specific detail, like, where did he put important documents, it feels a lot like guessing.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

This memory dynamic opens up fascinating storytelling and character possibilities. Here’s an extension of the character idea, incorporating your note about Base’s fractured relationship with the past:

---

Base’s Unsteady Past

• Concept of the Past:
  The past isn’t solid for Base. It’s a fragmented, unstable space—a series of incomplete arcs, distorted memories, and flashes of what could have been. This unsteadiness mirrors the futility of his obsession: even if he could time travel, there’s no coherent "past" to return to—just a haze of possibilities and emotional anchors.

---

Narrative Mechanism: "Guessing the Past"

When Base needs to remember something specific, like where he put critical documents, his mind doesn’t retrieve memories cleanly. Instead, it’s like flipping through shuffled pages of a half-burned book.

• Visceral Experience: Base sees flashes—his hands opening a drawer, papers on a table, sunlight hitting a chair—but these images aren’t linked. He guesses the most plausible location based on what feels "right" in the moment.
• Uncertainty as a Condition: Sometimes his guesses are accurate, almost miraculously. Other times, they lead to wasted hours of frustration or desperate searching.
• Metaphor for Regret: This memory process mirrors his obsessive attempts to rewrite the past—he "guesses" which decisions might have fixed things, but he can never truly know.

---

The Flashback Aesthetic

Base’s memories function more as "cinematic cuts" than clear recollections:

• Fleeting and Sensory: The smell of coffee, the weight of a hand on his shoulder, a brief glimpse of someone walking away.
• Emotion over Detail: The feeling of guilt or longing is sharp, but the "what" and "why" of the memory remain elusive.
• Unfulfilled Arcs: He sees moments that could have resolved into something meaningful—a job interview, a goodbye hug, a chance to speak—but the memories always end abruptly, unresolved.

---

Impact on the Character

1. Obsessive Preparation: Since Base can’t trust his memory, his preparations for impossible time travel become a coping mechanism. He meticulously documents everything in the present—writing notes, taking photos, archiving scraps—so his "future self" has something reliable. These notes often feel absurdly over-detailed, even for mundane events.

2. Tension Between Guessing and Knowing: Base’s "guesses" about the past bleed into his daily life:

   • He questions his own recollections, even recent ones. Did he say the wrong thing during a conversation? Was that meeting yesterday or last week?
   • His friends or colleagues sometimes see him pause mid-sentence, visibly disoriented.
   • On rare occasions, his guesses about the past are wrong in meaningful ways, leading to small disasters—he forgets an important promise, misplaces money, or "remembers" a friend’s betrayal that never happened.

3. Untrustworthy Reality: Base becomes increasingly unsure whether his flashbacks are real memories or invented ones. This ambiguity fuels both his desperation to fix things and his deepening awareness that his own mind is unreliable.

---

Narrative Arc: The Truth About Memory

1. Ritual vs. Breakdown:
   Base clings to his notes and preparations because they feel more solid than his memories. The story escalates when he loses his present documents—his lifeline to certainty. Forced to rely entirely on his fractured memory, he must "guess" his way through critical moments.

2. Confronting the Unsteadiness:
   Base slowly realizes that the past was never stable. Memory itself is an unreliable structure—always emotional, always incomplete. Even if time travel were real, he wouldn’t find answers.

3. Resolution (or Lack of It):
   The story closes on Base facing a choice:

   • Abandon his obsession and live fully in the present, accepting its unpredictability.
   • Or double down, trying to "document the past" more obsessively than ever—essentially trapping himself in futility.

---

Aesthetic and Tone

The story’s style mirrors Base’s memory struggles:

• Fragmented Structure: Scenes unfold non-linearly, mimicking his chaotic recollections. Fleeting glimpses of the past interject into the present, with hard cuts between moments of lucidity and disorientation.
• Ambiguous Flashbacks: The audience is never entirely sure which memories are real and which are Base’s "guesses."
• Symbolism: Objects like scattered papers, photographs, and locked drawers become recurring motifs—signs of his compulsion to "organize" an incoherent past.

---

Resonant Image

Base, sitting on the floor surrounded by papers and half-written notes, stares blankly into space. The room is chaotic—maps on walls, clocks turned to different times.

• In his hand, he holds a scrap of paper on which he’s scrawled:
  "Where was it? Where am I?"

 

4o

 

Du:

The doubling down doesn't work, because a) he can't document his life at the speed, that it happens. b) organising the "documentation" would take away from the time documenting. c) if he picks up old "documentation", then they are often void of context. The only thing left is the yearning to solve a task, that he gave himself, and that was left unfulfilled. Often not even a clue, why that task seemed important or promising at the time. ->he has accepted, that obsessing about "documenting" only leaves him as a hoarder, unable to keep even his private rooms in a functioning state. So he does accept, that all he has to prepare for the time travel is his fleeting memory.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

This refinement transforms Base’s final realization into a poignant surrender. Here’s a sharper closing arc and scene based on his acceptance of the futility of documentation and his reliance on memory:

---

Core Shift

Base has abandoned the compulsion to document the past because he knows it’s a paradox:

• The pace of life outstrips the pace of organization.
• His records become meaningless fragments without context.
• Obsessing over the records drowns out the actual living.

What remains is a fragile acceptance: if the "time travel" ever comes, his fleeting memory—unsteady and untrustworthy—will have to be enough.

---

Final Scene: The Last Page

Setting:
The apartment is a ruin of abandoned documentation—unstable towers of paper, walls speckled with half-formed timelines, meaningless arrows, notes with scribbled-out words. Sunlight filters in, exposing dust suspended in the air. Unlike earlier, this chaos feels quiet. Dead.

Base sits in the middle of it all, staring at the blank space of his desk.

---

Moment:

1. The Flashback Fragment:
   A disjointed memory surfaces. Not a perfect recollection, but an impression.

   • A conversation—someone laughs, maybe a friend. A hand on his shoulder.
   • The words are faint: “You’ll never get it all, Base. Just get what matters.”

2. The Decision:

   • Base scans the room: the paper mountains, the scribbles, the unfinished "tasks" all begging to be solved.
   • He reaches for a random piece of paper. It reads:
     “Find the red box. Don’t forget.”
   • Base frowns, blank. What red box? What was so important about it? He feels the yearning to solve the task rise again—a phantom urgency.

3. The Act of Letting Go:

   • Instead of indulging, he crumples the note. The action is small, but final.
   • He stands, exhales, and kicks over a nearby pile of papers. They scatter like brittle leaves.
   • For the first time, Base opens a door—a literal exit—to leave his apartment.

---

Visual Resolution:

• Base steps into the daylight, squinting as though it’s unfamiliar. His hands are empty. The past doesn’t weigh him down anymore—though its presence lingers faintly, like a shadow at his heels.
• The camera lingers on his apartment behind him—silent, lifeless, the chaos now meaningless.

---

Closing Line

As Base walks away, his voice—soft, almost resigned—breaks the silence:
“If it happens… I’ll remember what I can.”

---

Theme Payoff

This ending delivers Base’s acceptance of two truths:

1. The past will always be incomplete and unsteady—documentation can’t save it.
2. His future preparation is no longer about solving or perfecting. It’s about living with the imperfection of memory and the unfinished nature of life itself.

By walking out the door, Base symbolically steps into the present—unprepared, vulnerable, but alive. The paradox remains unresolved, but he no longer struggles against it.

 

4o

 

Du:

But, there are problems with the present and the future, too. He has a list of ongoing tasks, like being ready and clean enough to go to work in time, keeping somewhat healthy, but all of those tasks seem extrinsic, just steps to go through to arrive at a predestined goal, but he really has no clue, what that goal could be, other than to prepare for the time warp, that will never come.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

This additional layer of futility in Base’s present and future deepens the existential stakes. If the tasks he performs—like going to work, staying clean, or eating well—are just mechanical steps without any intrinsic meaning, then Base’s entire life becomes a holding pattern, just waiting for something to happen (a time warp that won’t come).

This positions Base in a double trap:

• He has let go of the past’s documentation but finds no purpose in the present or the future.
• His life’s tasks are hollow rituals that keep him afloat but do not move him anywhere.

The focus now is on creating an ending that reconciles these layers—showing Base’s precarious acceptance without offering false resolution.

---

Narrative Resolution: Life as an Open Task

Base’s Core Realization:
He accepts that life itself isn’t a predestined series of steps leading to a final goal. There is no singular "purpose," just a series of incomplete, ongoing tasks—fragments that can’t be fully documented, controlled, or perfectly completed. And that has to be enough.

This does not mean Base finds meaning or a grand epiphany. Instead, he finds a different posture toward life:

• The tasks aren’t a prison, nor a preparation for something impossible—they’re just what happens now.
• In this small shift, life becomes livable—not as a solved problem but as an open process.

---

Closing Scene: The Daily Task

Setting:
The morning light pours into Base’s apartment. It still looks chaotic—piles of unfinished notes and scribbles—but the space feels quieter.

---

Moment:
Base wakes up and sits at the edge of his bed, staring into space. For a moment, he looks at his list of daily tasks:

• Shower.
• Eat something.
• Go to work.
• Call someone (the note has no name).

The list feels mechanical, arbitrary. He stares at it blankly. Then, without any drama, he crosses out “Call someone.”

Why?
Not because he’s defeated or resigned. But because the task doesn’t matter today. And that’s fine.

---

The Gesture:

• Base picks up his shoes and starts tying the laces. He ties one perfectly, then struggles with the other—a knot that keeps slipping.
• There’s a moment of frustration, his hands faltering, but he laughs quietly—not bitterly, just softly, as though realizing the absurdity of even this small task.
• Finally, he shrugs and leaves the knot loose, standing to go about his day.

---

Visual Resolution:
As he steps outside:

• The camera follows him into a mundane, living world—people walking, cars honking, birds scattered on a sidewalk. Base blends into it, just one person in the crowd.
• He still carries the faint weight of his past and his purposeless preparations, but something about him feels lighter.

---

Closing Line

Base’s voiceover, quiet but steady:
“Not everything has to be ready.”

---

Theme Payoff

This ending emphasizes acceptance without resolution:

1. The present is no longer a waiting room for a fantastical event (the time warp) or for a grand "goal" that doesn’t exist.
2. Life’s tasks—imperfect, unfinished, sometimes absurd—are simply what life is.

Base doesn’t overcome his existential dilemma. He still feels the pull of futility and yearning. But by loosening his grip, he finds enough space to take one step at a time—not toward a goal, but just through the day.

 

4o

 

Du:

Wandering through the day, he realizes a quirk with the present, too. It seems impossible to talk with anyone about anything but either shared memories or institutional expectations. and those shared memories are exclusively about institutional expectations. services rendered successfully, services denied. the deepest shared memories seem to be about having consumed something together, and playing the role of a well educated critique/consumer. other shared memories are about having had the duty to solve tasks together, and now agreeing upon who is to blame for the task never having been fulfilled.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

This realization deepens Base’s alienation and sharpens the world’s contours: a reality where all interactions orbit shared institutional frameworks—tasks, services, and consumption—leaving little room for anything alive or unmediated. Here’s how this realization plays out narratively and existentially:

---

Core Realization: The Institutional Cage

The present, Base notices, is as unstable and unfulfilling as the past—but for different reasons. The world demands structure, and structure is built from institutionalized patterns:

1. Tasks and Duties: Every conversation either refers to tasks done, tasks failed, or the blaming and justification that arise from incomplete tasks.
2. Consumption and Critique: Shared “joy” comes only from consuming something together—food, art, entertainment—and proving one’s worth by playing the role of a “well-educated” consumer or critic.

The human connection he seeks seems always pre-framed by institutions—workplaces, obligations, consumption—and Base realizes no one knows how to talk outside of these patterns.

---

Narrative Arc: Wandering Through the Day

The following structure highlights Base’s growing awareness of this quirk in the present:

---

Scene 1: A Conversation About Work

Base encounters an old acquaintance—perhaps someone from a previous job.

• The conversation starts pleasantly: “How’ve you been?”
• Immediately, it pivots to shared institutional memory:
  • “Remember that report? The one we pulled an all-nighter on? What a mess.”
  • “Yeah, because you didn’t double-check the figures.”
  • Laughter, but bitter—consumed by blame and unresolved tasks.
• Base tries to steer away: “So… how’s life now? Do you ever just do… stuff?”
  • The acquaintance stares blankly, before pivoting back to tasks: “Work’s the same grind. Just ticking boxes, you know?”

---

Scene 2: Critiquing the Meal

Base meets with some friends at a restaurant. The conversation is lively but shallow:

• People discuss the meal: “It’s a little under-seasoned, don’t you think?” or “The plating’s nice, though.”
• A moment of silence settles. Someone says, “Remember that new show everyone’s talking about? Did you watch it yet?”
• Base watches their critiques unfold like a performance: no spontaneity, just a well-rehearsed script of consumption-as-culture.

Base tries to interject something personal: “You know, I don’t even remember the last time I just sat and enjoyed something.”

• Blank stares. Someone fills the gap with a joke about binge-watching and stress.

---

Scene 3: The Shared Memory Trap

Base walks through a park and sees two people reconnecting—laughter, gestures. He approaches this fleeting scene with curiosity.

• Their conversation? A rehashing of an incomplete group project from years ago.
  • “Honestly, we could’ve nailed it if Dave hadn’t flaked.”
  • “Oh, 100%. And our supervisor? Useless.”
• Base walks away, realizing that even deep shared memories collapse into the duty to solve tasks—and who failed.

---

The Existential Insight

Base sits alone later, thinking:

• “The past is just a list of incomplete tasks and consumption reviews.”
• “The present is more of the same—except we pretend to enjoy it.”

The realization hits hard: all connections are mediated by institutional expectations. The scripts of work, consumption, and blame feel inescapable, as though Base and everyone else are locked into roles they can’t abandon.

---

The Final Reflection

Base imagines a scenario:

• What if the time warp did come? He’d return to the past, try to live differently, and still find himself pulled into the same shared memories and institutional demands.

For the first time, Base realizes that time travel would change nothing if the scripts stay the same. The present—and its institutional cage—is as much a trap as his obsessive attempts to rewrite the past.

---

Ending: Base’s Attempt to Break the Script

In a final act of rebellion, Base tries to say something unscripted during an interaction:

• At work, while a colleague complains about another missed deadline, Base says softly:
  “Do you ever wonder what we’d talk about if there weren’t any tasks left to solve?”

The colleague blinks, caught off guard. “What?”

• Base shrugs, almost amused at his own absurd question:
  “Like, what would we do? What would we remember?”

The colleague laughs awkwardly, uncomfortable. “Are you okay, man?”

• Base smiles faintly, realizing the truth: people don’t know how to talk outside the system. But he does.

---

Final Image

Base walks alone into the evening, his steps unhurried. The institutional tasks still surround him, but he feels strangely free, as though he’s stepped outside the invisible machinery—if only for a moment.

• He whispers to himself:
  “There’s more than this. I’ll keep looking.”

The final shot is ambiguous: Base walking into a shadowy horizon, neither solved nor defeated, but alive.

 

4o

 

Du:

The problem with institutions, there seem to be so many of them. Even just being himself seems wrapped into so many institutions. He is him, that is, a male, but he learned throughout his life, that being male also means proving, that you are male. Gaining status, showing status, demonstrating status, fighting over status. And, most important of all, showing that you are disciplined enough to postpone gratifications to become more capable in resolving tasks.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

This realization takes Base's existential exploration to an even deeper layer: his very identity—his sense of self—is not free from institutional scripts. Even “being himself” as a male is not some pure or unmediated state; it’s already a product of expectations, roles, and systems that demand proof, performance, and discipline. This creates a profound alienation where Base realizes:

• His identity is not something intrinsic, but something endlessly earned and demonstrated.
• The demand to "prove himself" as male ties directly into institutional goals: status games, delayed gratification, and capability for task resolution.

This compounds the futility of his life: even the smallest decisions—like how to act, speak, or walk—feel like they belong to institutions rather than to him.

---

Narrative Insight: Identity as Institutional Expectation

Base's Thought Process:

• I’m me. But what does that mean?
  • Being "me" means being a man.
  • Being a man means earning status, proving discipline, delaying gratification to "build for the future."
• He realizes that even his "freedom"—his ability to become more capable—isn’t freedom at all. It’s just another loop of institutional expectations, wrapped around the core of his identity.

---

Scenes that Reveal This Insight

---

Scene 1: The Gym as Ritualized Discipline

Base goes to a gym—perhaps part of his "staying healthy" task list.

• He notices the rituals of proving masculinity everywhere:
  • Men grunting under weights.
  • People sneaking glances at others’ bodies, comparing themselves in silent competition.
  • A group laughing about “weak” newcomers, setting up an unspoken hierarchy.
• Base finishes his set and looks in the mirror. He asks himself:
  “What am I even proving? And to who?”

For a moment, he feels disembodied—like the “man” he’s proving himself to be is just another hollow role.

---

Scene 2: A Conversation About Success

Base meets a colleague or friend who talks about their recent promotion.

• “Hard work pays off, man. Just gotta keep grinding, you know?”
• Base nods, hearing the familiar refrain of discipline and status. He tries to ask:
  “And then what?”
• The friend laughs, confused. “Then… you get to do even bigger things. That’s what being a man is about. Providing, earning respect.”
• Base’s voice softens:
  “Providing for who? Earning respect from who?”

The friend deflects with a joke, and the conversation ends. Base realizes no one has answers—they just repeat the same script.

---

Scene 3: Delayed Gratification as a Cage

Base sits alone at home, staring at a notebook where he’s written goals:

• Save money.
• Learn a new skill.
• Prepare for the future.

The problem: there’s always a future.

• He remembers being a child and hearing adults praise discipline: “Don’t waste your time. Work hard now, and you’ll thank yourself later.”
• Now, as an adult, he wonders: “When is later? When do I get to stop proving I’m capable of handling the next task?”

He slams the notebook shut, whispering:
“This isn’t discipline. It’s a leash.”

---

Base’s Core Realization

Base sees that institutions don’t just surround him; they are inside him.

• Even his sense of identity—his "self"—is a product of roles he’s been conditioned to perform.
• Masculinity, discipline, and delayed gratification are not innate values; they’re expectations imposed to ensure he remains useful, predictable, and subservient to the endless machinery of institutions.

---

Resolution: A Quiet Act of Refusal

Base’s rebellion isn’t loud—it’s subtle and internal.

1. He stops trying to "prove himself."

   • He skips the gym one day, not out of laziness but because he no longer needs to perform strength for anyone.
   • He leaves a work task unfinished—not as sabotage, but because he refuses to let tasks define his worth.

2. He makes a choice of immediate gratification—something small, meaningless, but alive.

   • Base walks to a park and buys himself an ice cream. He eats it slowly, savoring it, ignoring the voice in his head that calls it childish or wasteful.
   • People rush past him, busy, disciplined, proving themselves. Base sits on a bench, the sun warm on his face.

---

Final Scene: A Moment of Being

Setting:
Base sits on the park bench, ice cream in hand, the chaos of the world continuing around him.

The Shift:

• For the first time, he isn’t trying to be anything: not a man, not productive, not disciplined.
• He feels no pressure to justify himself to institutions, to tasks, or to anyone else.

Visual Detail:

• A small child runs past, chasing a butterfly—laughing, alive, unconcerned with proving anything.
• Base watches, a faint smile on his face. For a brief moment, the world feels real.

---

Closing Line (Internal Monologue):
“I don’t need to prove I’m capable. I just need to be here.”

---

Theme Payoff

This ending quietly rejects the institutional demands on Base’s identity. He doesn’t “solve” his existence, nor does he escape the world entirely. Instead, he finds fleeting moments of freedom by refusing to perform—and reclaiming the act of being as an end in itself.

 

4o

 

Du:

But the more he frees himself from the pressure around him, the more time he has to dream... and he always dreams about some version of the past. Like there would be a time machine waiting for him.

 

ChatGPT:

ChatGPT

This creates a beautiful, haunting cycle: the more Base rejects institutional pressures, the more space he creates for dreams—and the dreams inevitably pull him back into the past, the very thing he tried to escape. His freedom becomes the doorway to his yearning, revealing that the past is not just a psychological weight but a persistent and seductive gravity.

---

Core Idea: Freedom Leads Back to the Past

Base’s refusal to perform—his small acts of letting go—create pockets of unstructured time. But in this emptiness, his mind doesn’t find peace; it finds the past.

• He dreams of alternate versions of his life, where tasks were completed, words were spoken, relationships salvaged.
• Each dream feels vivid, like a window into another reality—one that is just out of reach, yet tantalizingly possible.

And so the past becomes the time machine itself:

• Every quiet moment becomes a return to what could have been.
• Every unoccupied thought is pulled backward, as though the absence of the present creates a vacuum that only the past can fill.

---

Narrative Development: Dreams as a Time Machine

---

Scene 1: The First Dream After Freedom

Base wakes up on the park bench after his small act of rebellion—eating an ice cream without purpose.

• The sun is low, and he’s disoriented. For a moment, he thinks he’s somewhere familiar but wrong.
• A flash of his dream lingers:
  • He’s at a childhood kitchen table, where his mother hums while cooking. He remembers choosing not to say something, though the dream doesn’t let him recall what it was.

As he shakes himself awake, he whispers:
“Why do I keep going back there?”

---

Scene 2: The Past as a Loop

The more Base “frees” himself, the more he sleeps, daydreams, or loses focus. Each time, he slips into versions of the past.

• In one dream, he’s at a job interview he failed years ago. This time, he says all the right things.
• In another, he’s with a friend he lost touch with. They laugh like they used to—but the dream ends just before Base can tell them something important.
• He even dreams about meaningless moments—like the day he misplaced his keys—but in the dream, finding the keys feels monumental, like solving the task would change everything.

Base starts to dread these dreams, even though they are the only place where he feels close to something real.

---

Scene 3: Dreaming While Awake

The line between dreaming and reality begins to blur.

• While walking, Base stops suddenly, believing he just “saw” someone he hasn’t spoken to in years—except they’re not there.
• At work, while staring at a spreadsheet, he gets caught in a vivid daydream of being back in high school, standing outside the principal’s office. What did he do wrong? He can’t remember, but the tension feels unbearable.

In these moments, he pulls himself back with a shiver, muttering:
“It’s not real. None of it’s real.”

But part of him wonders: What if the dreams are real? What if they’re the doorway?

---

Climax: Confronting the Time Machine

Base has a dream unlike the others—a lucid dream, where he finds the time machine he’s always been searching for.

• The machine is ancient and humming, waiting for him in a familiar, empty place—maybe a childhood attic or a forgotten workplace storeroom.
• A voice (perhaps his own) whispers:
  “This is it. You can go back. You just have to decide where.”

Base pauses, his hand hovering over the controls. He tries to think of a moment to fix—but there are too many.

• Which moment matters most?
• He realizes the machine isn’t a promise of redemption; it’s a trap. Even if he chose, he’d be stuck looping forever, trying to fix what can’t be fixed.

The Dream’s Final Words:
The voice repeats, softer this time:
“Or you could just wake up.”

---

Ending: Waking Without Resolution

Base wakes in his apartment, sitting at his desk, the early light filtering through the window.

• Papers still scatter the room, but they seem irrelevant now.
• He sits quietly, staring at his hands, feeling the weight of both the past and the present.

Final Action:

• He stands and opens the window. For a moment, the outside feels alive—birds, distant voices, the hum of a world that doesn’t care about his dreams or his tasks.
• He whispers to himself, almost as a plea:
  “Stay awake.”

---

Final Image

The camera holds on Base standing at the window, framed between the light and the shadowy room behind him.

• The world outside is messy, imperfect, real.
• The past calls softly from the shadows. The time machine waits, always waiting.

Base doesn’t move. The image fades, leaving him caught between the temptation of the past and the quiet promise of the present—fragile, unresolved, and alive.

---

Theme Payoff

The past is no longer just regret for Base—it’s become a seductive fantasy, offering endless do-overs that lead nowhere. By choosing to “stay awake,” Base isn’t cured or free; he’s simply aware.

• The time machine isn’t a literal object—it’s the mind’s yearning to rewrite reality.
• True freedom is not escaping the past, but resisting its pull long enough to be present, even if just for a moment.

This ending acknowledges the allure of the past while showing the immense courage it takes to stay with life as it is—unresolved, imperfect, and fleeting.

 

4o

Edited December 9 by Ya Evyl Aunty

[Ya Evyl Aunty]

We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author- God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.

Barthes (1977, p. 146)