hamilton.likes.to.draw...

I woke up tonight after having a dream filled with existential dread.

I'm not fulfilling my potential. And life is starting to go faster. When you're twenty, life seems like it will just keep going forever. But as I near forty, I feel a wave of inevitability crashing toward me. The last 5 years have seemed so long, but they've gone by so fast. Maybe looking back on any chunk of time makes it seem small.

I need to redesign this website. I need to draw more. I've actually been doing that. I need to build myself some image uploading tools for this site. I need to use them to archive all the art that I've done within the last few years. I need to write a will. I need to write a map that leads to all the content I have hidden all over the internet.

I need to release something. I told some students the other day that it's not important whether or not something is done, only whether or not you released it. I have so much stuff that's released, and very little that's done. Teaching is a constant improvisation experiment, and sometimes you say something that's so totally right. And sometimes you say something that sounds right, until you hold it up against yourself and it shines a dirty light back on you.

I don't feel successful. I don't often feel fulfilled. I'm having a night of existential dread, and I haven't written in a while.

I like writing. I like the process of words. I like the process of distilling a free form thought into a transposed concept. But all I seem to be able to write is prose and poetry. I wish I had the discipline, drive, or ideas for writing something more story oriented. I've been drawing a comic for the last 2 years, and it has taken forever. It's so close to finished, and there's nothing scarier than finishing something. Except maybe starting something. And I didn't write it. I've never written anything except this blog, and some poetry a hundred years ago.

I'm having a night of existential dread. I pondered the notion of taking your life and waking up dead. What if you stayed in your body as they carted it away. What if your consciousness was bound to the flesh, and you screamed to the darkness as they threw dirt on your face. What if you stayed in the earth while the beasts and bugs slowly ripped apart your body until, like Theseus' ship, you weren't quite the whole anymore, but carted off to new existences. What if each of those pieces formed their own consciousness, separated off from the group. What if that's all we are is the existential dread of a being pulled apart time and time again, only to be placed back in the dirt to wait for the process to repeat.