terrifying tension
There are a lot of fears in my work – the terrifying tension of distance and closeness; the seesaw effect of anxiety and depression, calling my sanity into question. I always see the darkness by default, but I've never considered pessimism as an excuse for negativity. When we're young and strong, most of us reach a peak that we put on a pedestal for the rest of our lives. We fervently believe that everything after is inferior, the world goes downhill as we get older.
Consider the difference if you didn't start on top. I was an early outcast, an awkward reject living in my messy mind. Video games were my absolute refuge for years, endless adventures to save me from the unmanageable boredom and chaos of social interaction. For years, I thought a friend was someone you saw once and never again. I didn't realize that some folks continued connections for a lifetime – I'd never even made it a month. When I turned twenty, I made my first effort to bridge the gap between my heart and any other. Words and pictures were the first things that scraped me off the bottom.
So when old folks tell me of their golden youth, I sit calmly and tell them that my life got better with time. Not because of fate or faith, but from holding fast to hope. I was a miserable mess for so many years that I don't look back with nostalgia (but I remember everything). Sparks of joy are small and scattered, mostly when I was young and less aware. Time has told me that everything gets better if I believe it does. I feel it with my wife asleep next to me, in the knowledge of not being alone, in the whisper of low words after dark. I sense my life going somewhere, and the whole world comes along. Tomorrow is always more eager than today.
terrifying tension
There are a lot of fears in my work – the terrifying tension of distance and closeness; the seesaw effect of anxiety and depression, calling my sanity into question. I always see the darkness by default, but I've never considered pessimism as an excuse for negativity. When we're young and strong, most of us reach a peak that we put on a pedestal for the rest of our lives. We fervently believe that everything after is inferior, the world goes downhill as we get older.
Consider the difference if you didn't start on top. I was an early outcast, an awkward reject living in my messy mind. Video games were my absolute refuge for years, endless adventures to save me from the unmanageable boredom and chaos of social interaction. For years, I thought a friend was someone you saw once and never again. I didn't realize that some folks continued connections for a lifetime – I'd never even made it a month. When I turned twenty, I made my first effort to bridge the gap between my heart and any other. Words and pictures were the first things that scraped me off the bottom.
So when old folks tell me of their golden youth, I sit calmly and tell them that my life got better with time. Not because of fate or faith, but from holding fast to hope. I was a miserable mess for so many years that I don't look back with nostalgia (but I remember everything). Sparks of joy are small and scattered, mostly when I was young and less aware. Time has told me that everything gets better if I believe it does. I feel it with my wife asleep next to me, in the knowledge of not being alone, in the whisper of low words after dark. I sense my life going somewhere, and the whole world comes along. Tomorrow is always more eager than today.