Past Present Future
I’ve had a really good week. Mostly because I have been working hard, been determined, been putting in the time and drawing or planning. I’ve had a good week because I worked hard. There were times when I thought oh I am gonna take a day off, I want to rest, to relax but instead I would grind a bit more, draw something, read something, go for a walk, clean something. I would do something of value and towards a goal, I worked on progress. I have lots of goals, so I have lots to do. Some of it probably looks like playing to an outside eye. When I sit and draw a little goat man or cubes and spheres, or read a comic book; it probably seems like I am goofing off, wasting time. It’s not, I am putting in hours.
It’s been almost 4 years since I started drawing as an adult. I had given myself 5 years to see if I could make something out of it. Part of me argues that I am ahead of schedule, I have this website, I have a store, I have done a few commissions. Another part of me thinks that the last 4 years has been a nice warm up and I still have a good amount to go but I am really looking forward to it. Every weird little guy I draw, every pencil I grind down to nothing in sketchbooks no one will ever see; that is an investment in the future.
Things are going well and I am grateful to anyone that actually reads these, that reads my comics or enjoys my art.
Something odd did happen this week that has shaped how I am feeling at the time of this writing. I was cleaning out my google drive, it’s clogged with odd bits of Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder campaigns, random art, the books I have written, the stories I have started, poetry I have mangled. But I came across a letter I wrote 7 years ago, I wrote it to myself and it was the sum of every dark and awful thought I was having that day. I had forgotten about it, but as I read it some of those ideas floated across my memory. That was coincidently the time when I first came to the idea of the 3 selves, the past you or Antiquity, the Present, and the Future you. He wrote about it, or rather I did…it gets a bit confusing but that was a different person then. So I read this dark and awful letter full of the worst things and all I wanted to do was give some form of comfort to a man that was struggling. I cannot of course, the past is beyond us. But he did end it with a note to me now, to Present Guy. To hope that Present Guy was doing ok, that I was doing better than he was. To tell me that even though he was having a hard time that he was working to make sure I would have a better chance at happiness.
So reading that I knew I was going to have a good week, that I was going to work harder, put in the time, grind. Because I can’t comfort Antiquity Guy, I can’t say thank you for the effort and hardship he went thru so I could be happy now. But what I can do is my best to honor that and to make sure that Future Guy has the best chance possible to be happy and cared for and comfortable.
So I thank you again if you are reading this, as an aspiring artist a following is important. But it’s worth noting that I am also writing this for someone else, someone specific. He doesn’t exist yet, but when he does and he looks back on this I want him to know I am doing my best to make sure he is who he wants to be.
