My February Challenge

February 7, 2010

Howdy!
I can't believe it's already February in this "new" year.
In two, well, it's after midnight, so actually in ONE more day I will turn 50 years old. That's pretty unbelievable as well.
I suppose I'm fortunate in that many people I know don't think I look or act that old, and as my vanity increases with each year-- hell, each day-- I'm genuinely pleased to hear that. But, even that won't last. I mean, the white hairs are really starting to come in, hahaha!
But, besides this significant milestone in my age coming up, mortality fills my thoughts either directly or indirectly due to other circumstances in my life.
Just over a week ago, a young man I knew, Scott, passed away due to an accidental and unfortunate combination of events. He was only twenty-one. I consider myself very fortunate to have made his acquaintance during his brief time, and to also call him friend, although, to be honest, we weren't close.
As a person he was extremely gentle and compassionate, but he was also a gifted writer, a poet. We both shared similar tastes in movies, so the last times we did meet I usually steered the conversation to either movies, or my personal creative projects or inquiring about his personal creative endeavors.
So, for very selfish reasons, I will miss him.

Today is also the second anniversary of my mother's death (BLOGGER'S NOTE: I'm re-reading this post in 2018 and I realize this is incorrect. My mom died in 2007, so this would actually be the third anniversary. Weird.).
Although she was seventy-four, her death came unexpectedly, too. Not suddenly, but unexpectedly. She had succumbed to a recent illness in the last couple months of her life.
Remembering this fact fills me with contradictory emotions, because to this day, I think I could have prevented her death if I had acted a little more aggressively in pursuing the causes of her slow home recovery. I had originally acted in her behalf positively to get her admitted to a hospital when she had taken ill and she was resistant at first to go, and for that I'm glad, because that gives me some solace that I had done that, because it was difficult (for an old lady, she could be pretty freaking stubborn).
But, I wish I had been more consistent in my diligence in the very last days of her life.
However, what's contradictory is, I also feel her spirit had been liberated once she died.
My regrets, are again, selfish. I grieve for MY loss. Although I don't think my mom would've chosen to end her life at that point, once it had happened, once she had crossed that cosmic, spiritual, whatever threshold, she was off into the next part of her journey.
Look, I don't know what that means exactly, to be honest, but I deeply believe that as souls, we are all on our own journey. And once we finish this journey on Earth in this body, then we move on to the next journey-- whatever the hell THAT is. I'll let you know what THAT is when I get to that point.
But both Scott and my mom have gone on. They now are doing... whatever. And they aren't coming back.
But, I'm still here, so I have to focus on finishing my own journey here.

And what the hell does that mean?
To me, I think it's at least two-fold: theory and practice. There's what you THINK you should be doing during this lifetime and then there's what did you ACTUALLY do in this lifetime? And perhaps, arguably, it gets more complicated than that.
Perhaps there's a progression of steps.
Perhaps, first, we get to a point in our lives, hopefully early on in our young adulthood, where we say THIS is what I want my life to be.
Then, second, we try to pursue that idea and the reality of life either teaches us we're wrong, or we're correct, or we're some fraction of right and wrong in what we thought.
But, as you get older, I guess you get to a third point, and that's whether or not the lessons you learned from living are totally correct, because if you live long enough, hopefully you start experiencing enough you have to reconsider what you thought you knew.
Ha ha, this gets complicated, too. Because this can continue on along two very different lines of thought (at least): do you reconsider what you think is true about the WORLD and the way it is? Or do you reconsider what you thought was true about YOURSELF? What's significant about each line of thought is, one definitely can be changed-- guess which one?

I'm not going to continue this, because, hell, I'm just making this up as I go along as it is, so I don't want to come across like I've found out some sort of wise axiom that I'm leading up to here. Because I haven't.
I was just remarking that I've been thinking about my mortality because two people I care about have died and any death of someone I know is not only sad, but it is also a reminder that death comes to us all and we don't know when.
So, quit acting like you have all the time in the world!

And really, when I say that? I don't mean "you," reader. I actually mean ME. It's a curious writing affectation I have that I tend to write of myself in the, uh, second-person.

I need to quit acting like I have all the time in the world.

So, one of the other things that happened to me recently was that I injured myself at work back in December. I ruptured the tendon in my left bicep while lifting a heavy garbage can at work. I had surgery on Dec. 14 and I've been home on disability since. Quite fortunately, I'm right-handed, so I had all these plans to draw while I was recuperating for three months.
Well, I started drawing in December, but then the holidays seemed to be too distracting.
Then, after the holidays, I thought I needed to clean my workroom before I could continue my "drawing therapy" so I could have a proper space to work (ie. at my drawing table vs. our dining room table), and that was actually a good plan, except that, after one significant day of cleaning I didn't follow through on it to finish the task.
And now, suddenly, from 12 glorious weeks of working on my own projects, etc., I'm down to four swiftly dwindling weeks left. Holy shit!
Yet another reminder of how short life is.

But, this reveals to me how naive or disillusioned I am. Maybe all my strong opinions about how I would create something is all bullshit.
There's another young man I know who currently is producing his own self-published comic books.
To be honest, I think his writing and artwork could both use some improvement, but I will say this: he produces. He produces, he produces, he produces.
Not just one comic.
Not just one series of comics.
But a number of comic book projects, and he's on the verge of completing another story arc of books.

I, however... I have YET to do one completed comic book.
Hell, I've yet to do one completed PAGE.
So, whatever criticism I have of this young man's efforts rings hollow.
Because I feel I can do better.
And I have yet to put up.

So...

So...

So... fucking what?
What's the big brilliant conclusion to all this? Why have I gotten off my fat ass to suddenly post again in my DA journal? (BLOGGER'S NOTE from 2018 again: DA = Deviant Art. I still have an acount at DA but I haven't posted anything in years there, either art or journal entry. But, because I posted so rarely on any of my various blogs, and I still am that lame output-wise, I re-posted my DA journal entry here.)
Well, I can't answer why for that, but I won't complain about anytime I do post in any of my on-line blogs, I'm so erratic.
So, let's just chalk this post up to the new year, as a sort of response to an "implied" New Year's Resolution.
And as for this post itself, what is its "conclusion"?

Well, I think I need to focus on finishing something.
So, I'm going to try and crap out some kind of comic book before I go back to work on March 8. Because way back when I realized I was going to be on disability for three months, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to actually produce something while I had the opportunity.

Let's see if I can give myself a really, REALLY, great 50th birthday present this month.

More to come.