_How to end the night:

That Celsius really did its job. I feel at ease despite the state of things. Maybe you just run out of mental energy after so much thinking and there's nothing left to do but watch the news stories go on. How did it get like this? This account I mean. I'm not a political type nor do I entertain the thought that I'll use my platform for political endorsement. I'm just screaming into the ether. Writing has always come more easily to me than drawing and that's how my content ratio turns out the way it does. Whatever fires together wires together as my therapist says. The mental faculties I need for drawing certainly need revision because there are muscles up there I'm just not using as efficiently.

Everyday feels like the last day of normalcy, like those few tense weeks before the pandemic-remember those? We never thought it could happen here no sir. I feel like Turkish in the opening to Snatch.

"I'm a boxing promoter. What do I know about diamonds?"

At the very least, I could be a smut-writer since my art isn't as prolific. These entries are just easier to write because the source material is so (how should I say?) plentiful. If you got it, flaunt it. I'm very grateful for my position despite everything. I get to be more worried for others than myself. I have job prospects, a place to live, enough free time to facilitate my degenerate ideas. And for that reason it is a failure on my part to not do anything with these privileges. That word really has a stink on it these days.

I can honestly say that there is no room in my heart for negativity because at this point I feel it like an acid dissolving my brain. And I-unlike so many others-have the option to tune out. It will end someday.

Of course I'm not truly exempt from the difficulties predicted to come. Everyone has to eat, everyone needs clean water. The southwest is especially vulnerable to drought and heat advisories despite our local economy dumping so much investment into pecans of all things. If you've ever driven past the orchards you'll see the little swamps that flood the ground surrounding the trees. Water-intensive crops. Golf courses. Water parks. Odd things to find in a desert.

I don't expect anyone to listen. If I didn't write these I'd just talk to myself throughout the day. Everything has to go somewhere. This year started with me telling myself that the only thing that matters is cultivating an online gallery of creative works. Drawings, stories, etc. Consider my aforementioned 'Screaming into The Ether' as a means of de-cluttering. It's like waste management, someone's got to take out the garbage. I'll settle for being a janitor again if my interview falls through tomorrow. The mass deportations are making such waves in the job market.

_Return to Form:

What do I know about diamonds? I'm a boxing promoter!

As stated, writing comes more naturally to me than drawing and that will continue to be the case if I keep up with this routine. With the character sheets now completed (save for a few adjustments I want to make tomorrow) I can finally use the Death in Space core rule book for story generation.

Why did it take me that long? I think I'm easily distracted but with the new year came a new adjustment to my workflow. You start to reassess your priorities when you sense things going to shit. It's all perspective really. Maladaptive daydreaming is just as much to blame. Chatter in the skull. It needs to stop.

I have to accept that I am not that good but w/ time and persistence I can match my skill level in drawing with that of writing; or at least my comfort with doing so. Drawing always felt like a chore and it has to do with expectation. If a drawing wasn't going well it would be frustrating. The legs would be too long or there was an issue with perspective and I'm erasing the face over and over again. A chore just to pad out my art portal here on Newgrounds.

Where does the heart of the issue lie? Expectations that I have to be as good of an artist as I want to be or else that daydreaming went to waste. Well, it did. Because now I'm rushing to put something out there and it lacks the same passion that goes into the Travel Kit-just draw a naked woman and call it a day. The solution lies in treating illustration with the same favor as writing. I never expect to anyone to read this. There is this one guy who leaves a little smiley face consistently on my blog posts. Thank you if you are taking the time to read these. I wish you well

That favor I'm talking about is how loosely I hold the idea. My therapist is a very mystical person. One day he handed me a little picture book and said open up to any page. The first picture I landed on: washoe baskets. Thematically, a washoe basket doesn't jealously hold onto its contents. They're light, impermanent, most of them don't even have lids. This was all on a discussion regarding my art blocks by the way. You see, a container that doesn't freely allow for the deposit and withdrawal of its contents doesn't make for a very good container. Imagine if your bank welded its vault shut with all your money in it-I know most currency is digital, bear with me here.

Every idea felt like it had to be the idea. It had to be perfect, executed to a level of precision long-range sharpshooters can only dream of. But that can't be true when you're a beginner artist and certainly not while you're an amateur.

Another thing that pushes me into rushing is the need to escape the rat race. Everyone wants to follow their passion. Be an artist, a singer/songwriter, make millions playing video games on Twitch, and I thought with enough grinding and momentum I could be independently wealthy using my stories. How unrealistic am I?

Exploitative is the word. How could I get anywhere in building talent if I'm already planning to build income off of what I haven't created? No, it's flawed. The entire workflow is flawed by doing that.

Where does that leave us? Well, the answer lies in several things: cease all expectations, hold onto ideas lightly, and just go with the flow. Remember that protocol? It was rooted in kindness, moving gently. Without negativity as a guiding force, there's nothing left but to plant a seed and let it grow. Minimal intervention, let nature take its course.

I'm gonna do something different for April this year. She's always been hard to draw, hard to write for, and that's because I held onto what I thought she should be as a character. Too much control. Too much rigidity. Remember when I said not to take things too seriously? Now's the time to try it. Mr. Alan Watts could have something to say about if he were still here. With his death goes a certain pattern in the water, he said something like that.

*Quick intermission: while this $3 walmart candle sets the tone for writing, it is not as potent as I thought it would be. My dad got back into pot and when he lights up he puts 90's rappers to shame. Never was a fan of grass. Drink is more my style.

_More gripes about art:

I asked myself where does that talent come from? That ability to draw, to program, just as easily as speaking your native language. It comes from years of habit. Personally, I'm a thinker. Not that I ponder so deeply about the world; I'm not that pretentious. But there's a lot of free time I fill in with just thinking. Together, the skull-chatter mixed with a negativity bias leads to a kind of brain rot that makes skibidi toilet look like Jacob Geller.

Maybe I could get somewhere in video essays. I always enjoyed Plague of Gripes' content when he does his monologues over a drawing. Just wish he did more animations, though. Those were better days when the Super Best Friends were still together. But things change...

Kill me or release me, parasite. But do not waste my time with talk!

I just have a lot to say and I'm tired of thinking it. After all, what fires together wires together.

_Moving Forward:

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is easily one of my top 5 films. I have yet to finish the book but will likely do so with a reading of it on YouTube. When you think about it, what was Hunter S. doing out there with his Samoan attorney? Officially, he was covering a story on a motorcycle race, but being the drug-aficionado he was, got sidetracked. Then he wrote a book about it.

There's a meta-commentary to that whole narrative. At least when you watch the movie you pick up on the woes of this former hippy who outlived the highest point of American counter-culture. We're all wired into a survival trip now he writes near the movie's denouement.

Duke's narrations throughout appear more in mind than the crazy visuals, all the gags with the dwarves and hallucinations. The narrations are when he's his most lucid and likely depressed.

I can admire his adventure to Nevada and envy moments of it here and there. He was on a mission to find the American Dream the government promised him. Or what was left of it. Fact is, the whole experience was futile. There was no american dream. And all that's left to do with the space caused by its absence is to get high and think back on what could've been. The hippies: burnt out, displaced, spiritual refugees.

Who do you think is the modern day equivalent now that we're all so material and assimilated to order?

_Closing Thoughts:

I write because it's the easiest thing for me to do in this day and age. I've exhausted the option to ceaselessly day dream and now the only thing left to do is concede the loss of time and mental energy. Think lightly of yourself and deeply about the world Musashi writes. Because the world's a big place and could stand to lose a few pounds. I find the idea sobering.

I'd love to resume work on the character sheets, get them rendered, printed, and fill the blanks with everything pertaining to my lineup of characters. That's the way to move forward. It'll be better to not hold onto it so tightly as if it were my only anchor at sea. There's a reason Buddhists say attachment leads to suffering.

At the end of the day I learned that there is no big idea, no one-punch win that's gonna save me from my status in life. There's only the work in front of me and the tenacity to finish it.

Goodnight, have the day you deserve, tomorrow will bring more big news.

-Errant out