The Sam You Don't See

For my Self Portrait, I decided to take a picture of myself sitting in front of my bedroom door with a laptop on my lab. Then, I took screenshots of past video projects I've worked on and incorporated them in the picture. The reason I did that is that my hobby is editing. I enjoy editing videos. I've been doing this ever since high school. I find editing is not only something I'm good at, but it helps me escape from reality.

To those who don't know about me, I suffer from a social anxiety disorder. It's hard for me to make friends because I'm afraid of being judged. It's hard for me to be in a crowded room of people, and I get the feeling that everyone is thinking about me. I don't have a lot of friends. There have been times in the past that I've been thinking about taking my own life. There was one time where I thought about bringing a knife to so I can go to the bathroom, sit down on the toilet, and slid my throat. I didn't care how painful it was going to be because all I could think of was that the most painful thing ever, then sliding your own throat, is living as someone that doesn't have a lot of friends. That’s what hurts. I also have a learning disability, which sucks because I feel people around me are much smarter than I am. I'm not even good at math. If you were to ask me to measure something, I would have a hard time doing it. I feel ashamed of having this type of disability that's a part of me.

The only place where I feel most comfortable being in is my room. When I'm in my bedroom, I feel "alive." I feel free from people judging me, free from anxiety, free from conflicts that exist in this complex world that we live in now. When I get out of my laptop (start up my desktop mac) and open up Premiere Pro, my mind is in complete focus. My concentration is a shield where no person can break it. If there is any activity that I mostly stay the most, focus on its editing.

I like to act in videos. In high school, I've worked on students' projects, and I enjoyed it. Sometimes I make my comedy videos; for example, I made a Fornite parody where I play a character that quickly gets killed by the other player giving a sense that I suck at Fortnite. One time I acted in a short film I made at New York Film Academy, and it got a lot of praise. Acting also helps me to escape reality. When acting, it's like I can leave my physical body and turn into this other person that’s way different than me.

I do have a YouTube Channel, but when I post a video, I disabled the comment section. There are a lot of bad people on the internet who go around cyberbully users that post content on social media. I don't care about what people say about the videos I make; I want people to see my form of "art." Editing is "art," and artists should acknowledge it. I'm not good at drawing, painting, or sculpting, but I am good at editing video content. I envision how I want these videos to come out before I sit down and work on them. I'm a visual learner. I learn quickly with visuals rather than words.

When talking about my identity, you can label me as a disabled person that doesn't have a lot of friends, but with my talent for editing videos and creating these forms of visual art, I'm much bigger than a disabled person. Social anxiety is an everyday struggle for me, just Ta-Neshisi Coates's struggles of living in this country as an African American that has to deal with hard racism and racial bias in society. Still, he's a brilliant writer that speaks from his heart. Just like me, that speaks from my heart when writing this artist statement.

Lastly, the picture I took of myself sitting in front of my door was intentional. The door is a metaphor in which when I leave my room, I don't feel comfortable and anxious, but when I'm in my room, I feel the opposite. My bedroom has become a haven for me. With editing videos, in my room, I feel infinite, as oppose when I'm out in public, I feel vulnerable as I don’t exist. The parameters of my room are of my artistic existence. The Sam that you see at school is a shy, quiet, less confident person that struggles with everyday battles that occur inside him, but the Sam you don't see is an artistic, humorous, creative soul that loves to spread his creative wings and soar. That's the real me.