An outlet for creative and emotive expression. That’s what drawing once meant to me. It was my way of making sense of the world, of working through my emotions and finding meaning in the sometimes cruel, senseless acts of life — those of death and departure (the acts which hurt me most).

As a young boy, I would draw loved ones shortly after they passed. This tradition began with my Grandma, followed by my Grandpa and my beloved golden retriever. I remember feeling a sense of urgency while drawing, as if I needed to capture their likeness before it faded my mind. Once completed, I felt exhausted and emotional fatigued, as if I just relived their lives and deaths through the small paper window sitting before me. These early experiences with mark making reinforced the role of drawing in my life as an emotional act — one of introspection and self-sacrifice.

It comes as no surprise then, that while studying art in school, I chose to further explore what drawing meant to me. For my thesis, I committed to a deep dive — a dissection — of the act of drawing itself, from both an artistic and a computational lens. It was only fitting, considering my parallel studies in psychology and computer science, and my ardent desire for exploring the intersection of art and science.

From the beginning, my goal was to use this project to better understand myself inside and out. Why does the pen under my fingers move the way it does? How much can I attribute the character of my marks to the physiology of my body? To what else might this character be ascribed? When all is explained away, what’s left? Will there be a soul remaining, lying prostrate on the paper?

Quickly, the experiment obsessed me. I became engrossed in the extreme pursuit of self-understanding. I conducted countless tedious experiments on myself, trying to pick apart the idiosyncrasies of my body and mind. In time, I developed intricate, matchstick models of my inner workings. I could explain how my hand moved and why my mind moved it there as a complex physiological and psychological feedback loop. Combined with intent, this process converged on a satisfactory representation of my mental image of the outside world.

The model wasn’t perfect (not even close to it). However, this didn’t upset me. I came to appreciate the mind as a black box beyond certain levels of understanding. There were many decisions and representations I could feel present within me but existed just out of the reach of conscious comprehension. It felt like walking down a dark tunnel with a dim lantern: Eventually, I approached a thick fog that impeded my senses, preventing me from venturing further. The model made me realize how little I understand the motivation behind my behaviors, cloaked behind a veil of perceived lucidity and control. At once I came to realize both how deterministic my choices are and how little I truly understand myself.

Looking back, I never stopped to wonder how the system I was observing might change through the act of observation itself. It never occurred to me until many months later, that I may have inadvertently changed myself, fundamentally and irreversibly. In essence, by assuming the dual roles of observer and observed, I couldn’t help but change the system — me.

As soon as the model represented a version of self, it became in that exact moment a version of past self. Slowly, I began to notice changes in my perspective of the world. In particular, drawing lost its special, intimate, sacred and magical place in my heart. The act of drawing became explainable: a logical function of enormous complexity, the likes of which I could not fully wrap my head around, but a function nonetheless.

When I tried drawing again, I could finally explain why I made every mark. However, this explanation bought me no joy; instead, it took all the joy away. I couldn’t stop the voice in my head calling out to me every moment, telling me why I chose to represent a line in this way or a patch of shading in that way, why I proceeded from one object to another, and so on. The magic of drawing receded away, and along with it, my interest in creative and emotive expression through the one outlet that meant something to me for so many years.

Why was I so convinced of my behavioral determinism, when I simultaneously admitted an inability to fully understand myself? Why couldn’t I cherish the small hope that there is still a magic in the act of drawing? Because the experiments produced mountains of evidence in favor of determinism, which I couldn’t easily disregard. I live my life prioritizing hands-on learning, cherishing discoveries as self-evident truths. Disregarding my discoveries would mean going against my deepest beliefs. Naturally, I couldn’t turn away from them, so determinism became part of my psyche and my worldview.

The scientific half of me couldn’t stop ruining these once mystical acts, where from humble paper and ink, subdued to pain and persistence, emerged an image — a ghost — out of nothingness. This voice, emblematic of the pursuit of knowledge, felt like that annoying friend who explains movies while you’re watching them. But unlike that friend, the voice didn’t quiet down when I asked it to. Instead, it remained steadfast by my side, and with it came a profound distaste for drawing.

Somehow, I still found joy in others’ drawings. I could still marvel at them and the beautifully personal processes from which they emerged. Perhaps, I could still do this because others’ minds will always be a mystery to me. However, my own processes, once sacred, were now dissected and disassembled, shattered and scattered, laid bare on the table before me. Whatever aura of magic these bits and pieces one had, now faded away. From them, I could no longer derive pleasure, and I had no one to blame but myself.

I felt like a lost of part of me. A sadness grew within me, as I came to understand the error of my ways.