Dave Lukas

  • Weekly Review 6/24/24

    What’s been taking up brain space this week along with what I created this week.

    • Connecting with close friends. Always grateful for their presence and feeling seen and heard.
    • Reminding myself about doing spiral check-ins
    • Trying to give myself grace for not showing up as much in my journal as I’d like as my mileage ramps up for my 50k race in 8 weeks.
    • Reminding myself there’s only 24 hours in a day and how I’m choosing to prioritize my time to have training take up so much of it. That I’ll return again and in the meantime do what I can do when I can. And that’s enough.
    • Wins: getting to the end of another journal, running a total of 23 miles over the weekend, getting transparency and acknowledgement of boundaries, not putting pressure on myself to use the summer solstice and full moon energy “well” while still being intentional.

    Here’s what got created this week:

  • Weekly Review 6/27/24

    What’s been taking up brain space and emotional bandwidth this week:

    • Trying to notice and remember wins for myself cause I don’t celebrate or recognize them as often as they probably occur
    • Finished “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse” book by Peter Matthiessen. Great book, eye opening and maddening.
    • Feeling some frantic energy that lingered for the day
    • Being inspired to think about RSS via a blog post from Chris Glass. Do I incorporate it here? Do I follow blogs that way? The way I used to in the early 2000s? Not sure yet, it’s still marinading.

    Here’s what I created this week, despite all the reasons I could have made to not create.

  • Weekly Review 6/10/24

    What’s been taking up brain space for me the past week.

    • Reminder that my energy and emotions fluctuate from day to day. To pay attention and be aware but just let them be and observe. Like clouds passing in the sky.
    • Annoyed at myself for circling on the same concepts. But are they figure out-able? Is there an other side to them? Do I need to move to acceptance that they’ll never be answered? Cause trying to solve them hasn’t worked.
    • The magic of re-visiting old journals. Discovering old practices and ideas. And reminder of the evolution of my artwork. But I have to keep showing up and creating for this evolution to happen.
    • Creating just to live the quote by Sarah Leavitt to make a “pile of imperfect things”.
    • Also reminding myself of what Lynda Barry says about creating to have an experience.

    Here’s some of what I created this week

  • Weekly Review 6/3/24

    Things that have been bouncing around my brain for the past week:

    • Not everything needs an explanation
    • Does this come from a place of needing control? What am I trying to control?
    • Reading obituaries to keep life in perspective and check in with myself if I’m living the way I want
    • My thoughts and overall flow feel dammed up
    • Trying to show up every day in my journal
    • While also trying not to judge myself when I don’t
    • Trying to question the “good enough” voice
    • Quote/questions from Sarah Leavitt: “what if you make a pile of imperfect things? What if your job is experimentation, exploring, repeating, failing, learning, continuing?”

  • Weekly Review 5/20/24

    Things that have been taking up brain space this week:

    • Feeling stalled out on topics or reminders to journal about
    • The idea of looking at things and decisions with the question “what would a _____ do?” The blank being “artist” or “athlete” or “present spouse” or “attentive Dad” etc
    • The enjoyment of making a mixtape for my father in law
    • Do I create a set schedule to post or write or create? Like every Monday I’ll post something or every Friday I’ll share 5 things from my week. As a way to keep myself accountable for creating and showing up.
    • Feeling stuck and in a bad mood and then creating a collage to try and capture those emotions. And then feeling lighter after making a collage.

    Here are some of the things I created this week:

  • Weekly Review 5/13/24

    What’s been taking up brain space the past week:

    • Growing tired of the same themes and mental run arounds. Just talking and writing myself in circles with no resolution or conclusion or movement.
    • Are these “old tapes” that run in my head still valid and accurate? Or have they become so rehearsed that I just automatically assign the story without questioning its validity.
    • Do I need a daily routine? For my drawing/creating, journaling and writing here for this site. Does that force it into the “should” category vs doing it for the right reasons?
    • Feeling like life is just flying by and I’m just watching it all go past.
    • Feeling blunted and flat
    • Ralph Steadman. Which led me to use my grandfather’s dip pen, which always makes me smile and feel closer to him.
    • The good energy from a group workout at work. Enjoyed the collective pushing ourselves together.

  • Weekly Review 5/6/24

    What’s been taking up brain space the past week:

    • Feeling flat
    • Concern about some knee pain
    • Questioning why I do the things I do
    • Stuck on how to interact and engage, feeling like I’m doing the wrong thing
    • Start a comics practice to process things
    • How to evolve and grow this website

  • Weekly Review 4/29/24

    What’s been taking up brain space the past week.

    • Fatigue and rest
    • Growing and/or evolving this digital garden
    • Trusting in the flow of things/the universe vs trying to force things
    • Cultivating creative practice
    • What is practice? What does it mean? What does it look like?
    • Practice as in practicing something to improve vs practice as in a process
    • Listening to my body intuitively and having data validate those feelings. Confirming that I know my body well.