Last night, I asked for advice among my Flickr friends regarding my website, and the responses I got were amazing. Yes, I did get some great compliments on my choice of theme (commercial – I do not write code, I only fiddle with CSS a bit! ) and my pictures, but I’ve also been told several times that the whole site doesn’t seem to have a purpose. It seems like I wasn’t doing a good job of presenting my assets, selling myself, pitching that image of a great artist. So, I’ve been pondering about what the purpose of my website is, anyway. Do I really want to find a prospective employer? And if I do, would this employer be repelled by a cluttered, personal blogsite where I don’t try to sell myself in the least? I guess that’s where the dog lies buried – praising myself. I’ve been notoriously bad about that, all my life. Maybe it’s my mother’s humility that taught me at and early age that it is not OK to boast in your own lime light, just as it’s not ok to miss school or work if you are not on death’s doorstep. Or maybe it’s my dad’s way of trying to teach me math when I was little, and how when I just did not get it, he’d throw his arms in the air and exclaim “But how can you NOT get this???”, which made me feel completely and utterly stupid and ashamed of myself. The pats on the back, the compliments and the praise came much later in my life, when the idea that I wasn’t worth much was already ingrained in my perception of myself.

Oh, don’t think bad about my parents now. It was just their way of trying to raise a child that seemed smart enough, but not in the things that mattered to them. I turned out ok, I think – albeit a bit scarred in matters of self confidence. So no, you won’t find me describing myself in colourful syllables, weighing every word for its impact on potential employers or clients, but you’ll instead notice a repetitive pattern of me making fun of myself, my surroundings, and life itself, inviting you to look further than just the descriptions, at the apparent clutter of pixels, to find my talents as they are laying out before you. Talents, after all, are just like as art, and therefore always in the eyes of the beholder.