Reasons Why

            I know I have a lot of people who follow me. Maybe not like a famous person a lot of people, but I’d say there are at least 20 people total who are interested in the things I write, draw, dream, what have you. Believe it or not, I do pay attention and your praise, confidence, criticism, and appreciation do make me happy. I know you guys like my stuff and want more, even if it’s just these silly little things where I rant or explain or just write.

            So why don’t I do more?

            There’s a lot of reasons, but they all boil down to the same thing and that thing is severe depression. It’s not easy for me to write about this stuff. At all. I tried once to get it all out and that didn’t go well. It ended in a terrible closet drama (I just learned that phrase and I’m going to use it, damn it) play that is pretty terrible. I hate all the stuff I create, but this is one of the first things that has been universally panned, which sort of makes me happy.

            I’m getting away from my point. That happens to me sometimes. My mind tends to not so much wander as planet hop, and, occasionally, dimension jump.

            Depression. That’s my big problem. It’s bad for a lot of different reasons. Let’s start with first understanding why I’m not putting out more stuff despite demand (which I would be more than happy having 20 people who like my stuff. It’s 20 people more than I’d expect). Here is a typical day for me.

            I wake up next to my wife. That is probably the best part of my day. If I’m lucky, I wake up without having a headache, neck cramp, or general body malaise. I hit the bathroom, like most folks, wake up, check emails, eat breakfast of some kind (recently mostly ramen till we get our bills sorted out and can afford, say, real food). Once that’s done I think about what I’d like to do. I look at Deviant Art on a daily basis, following lots and lots of people, so drawing comes to mind. I get to that point and I remember that I loved to draw at one point in my life, and would even do what I call “decent” pieces (some of which I have hanging behind me). Then I remember that sort of thing is in the past and that I no longer seem to have a knack for it, or the patience for it and that I can only do pencil sketches and not color. I see all the beautiful, amazing pieces these artists do on the fly (seriously, some of them have practice sketches that are like, 10 minute pieces they do on tablets that make any of my work look like stick figures) and I just really don’t feel like drawing cause I have no talent or no perceived talent. My brain cannot take the fact that there are multiple styles of art and that not all art must be colored and that there is a talent and beauty in pencil drawings, comic or otherwise. I run through my head all the different things I’d like to draw, compare them to things I like, find them lacking and just drop it.

            That’s how it starts.

            Then, I’ll think about all the stories and writings I’m working on. I’ve said it often and will continue to say it, I am a better writer than artist any day of the week. I know I can write. I know I’m good at telling stories. So I sit and think about what I’d like to work on. Then I look at the house. It’s never in proper order. I’ve given up on trying to get help cause it always turns out so badly. My son is trying to enjoy his life and keep good grades, so I try not to bother him unless I need to give him some dad something or other (recently he got an unpleasant letter about one of his classes, so I took his stuff made him do stuff till I was satisfied he probably would work harder on school). My wife is the only person that brings home an income. She works 12 hour shifts sometimes, and has very little time to relax on any given day, so I feel bad making her do anything. I hate the fact that I’m the only one who cleans, and pretty much have been the only one who cleans, but at the same time, I’m a janitor, why should anyone else have to? Plus I don’t leave the house, I don’t do anything important to anyone and I should be the only cleaning. So, anger, regret, sadness, hopelessness all sort of roll at me at once at this point.

            Then I see how bad the house is and I just don’t want to do it.

            Having the house dirty is a huge issue for me. I hate it. It bothers me. It makes me crazy to a point. And yet, it’s my fault, I should be cleaning it, but it’s so dirty, I don’t want to, etc, to the point that I’m so depressed there is very little I can do at all. Honestly, getting me to leave the house or do anything but sit behind the computer doing mindless and sometimes not so mindless things (Facebook, Cracked.com, TGWTG.com, World of Warcraft, etc) is like trying to get a vehicle to break Earth Orbit. It takes a great deal of energy and willpower. I mean, honestly, it’s almost impossible. I have to be super motivated, like people are coming over or something. However, since I broke all my friends by marrying someone a few years back, I lost all that. No one comes to visit anymore for fun, because I’m not fun anymore. I’m just this broken thing. I’m not me.

            So, this continues. In the end, my day comes down to waking up, eating, surfing the net, and being alone wishing I wasn’t so depressed and lonely that I could do something. There is no medicine forth coming. There is no therapy forthcoming. For now, I have to focus on not getting worse (a difficult task) and trying to get everyone else to the point they need to be. My wife is close to getting into a nursing program at DMACC and becoming a nurse, which is a huge dream of hers. So I push her toward things that will do that and just try to make her as happy as possible whatever way I can. With my son, I try to show him things I think he’d like, help him go out and have fun if I can, get him a soda or something when I’m able… It’s not much. I’m sure I’m among the worst fathers on the planet, and there are people who still don’t understand why I chose to let him live with me, but hey, I try.

            So that’s it. All of that is why I don’t produce more stuff. I really want to make a webcomic again. I’ve made two, and I had an absolute blast doing them. If I could find a way to get on a regular schedule, to actually make them, I’d love to. Right now, though, I don’t have any really good ideas on what to do. I have a few ideas, but nothing solid enough to turn into an actual comic. I also would like to work on my novels. I know they’re good. I know they’re interesting. I know they have solid characters and stories, I just need to write them, but again, I get to that point where I want to and everything just goes away. It doesn’t take much, either. A mention of Twilight is enough to depress me out of writing. Twilight is quite possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing about. I tried to read it when it got popular to see what was so great about it, and I couldn’t get through it. It was horribly written. No flow. No rhyme, bad characters, bad story. It made me sick. And yet, here we are with it being one the most popular things out there. It’s stupid. It’s worse than stupid. It’s up there with Honey Boo Boo on a list of things that are destroying our youth. So I sit there and I see how dumb it is, and I figure, well, my stuff is at least a little more clever, a little more intelligent… what chance does it have against such stupidity? And then, of course, being depressed and my own worst enemy, I realize my stuff is shit anyway, and not even as good as Twilight, Honey Boo Boo, or even Snooki’s New York Times bestselling book, and I figure, what’s the point?

            What’s the point? 

            That’s the question I ask myself more often in a day than anything else.

            What’s the point?

            There isn’t one.

            Later days.