Write for Rights Sake

When I last left off in my book, I had the infinite. It seems to be a problem because in the face of it we are nothing and actions are meaningless. I always believed that doing the right thing was only good if a person’s primary motivation for doing it was because they thought it to be good. Personal motivations will only sully the act. Imagine if everyone only acted in what they really thought was the right thing to do. Maybe it wouldn’t solve all problems, but the differences between people will be a lot narrower. To better illustrate this lifestyle, I’ll begin to explore some motivations. 

If people only did what they thought was right, there wouldn’t be an obesity epidemic. That is one issue that probably leads to the majority of health problems in America that can be addressed from multiple levels. When looking at any philosophy of life or preferably any issue in life, they should be examined at multiple levels. Maybe a solution fails on one level but is such an improvement at another level that it’s a net positive. An example of multiple levels for the problem of obesity, first is the individual, there’s also the roles parents have on how their kids eat, how society handles food coupled with money as well as how society treats people who are overweight. The body will respond when it is full, I’ve been there, I’ve eaten so much that I feel like I’m going to burst. There’s still half a slice of cheese cake left though. The body is saying, “Eating more is the wrong thing to do.” The person even knows it’s wrong, I did, the mind can read what the body is telling it, but the mind wants the pleasure brought about by cheese cake. This way of living challenges the infinite.

Try and Stop Me

Good evening pages, sorry I’ve been writing you so lately. I just haven’t really had my heart in writing these. I fear any day now that I will stop doing it. On one hand I think that I don’t need to do this, it’s just another bore. I guess that’s a childish attitude. I’ll try and stick with it, I’m sure I’m just going through a dry spell and I feel really tired with my schedule of activities. As soon as I make a schedule I begin thinking I’m being choked by it and I can’t do anything else in my life because I must complete the schedule. My brain is a mess, it’d be great to be a machine. Type in the program and execute. Will I really be able to write this everyday for the rest of my life? What will I talk about, what have I been talking about for a year. It’s just my inner monologue. 

I’ve got a real problem with failure, I don’t know why as soon as thinks get the slightest difficulty or I have a little failure that I want to abandon ship. I wish I knew what to do, the one thing I do know is that writing morning pages are good for me, you’re writing a journal and it’s the first time you’ve been able to get this habit to stick for more than a couple days, why not keep it going? I’m just tired and I need to study hands. I’ve got a lot of hands to draw, I’d like to draw more heads as well, This is my life now, drawing heads and hand and people and things. Drawing drawing drawing. ABD always be drawing. We’re pretty close to 300 now and should be in the clear by the time I finish.

Serving up a side of existential dread

Maybe someday I’ll get around to writing that book. I wanted myself to answer the question, “What does evil do?” The problem is that was a prompt prepared by yesterday Chris, today Chris is a completely different person, he doesn’t want to talk about evil. I mean I do and always want to, but what can I solve. A lot probably, but I don’t know, I’m just feeling a little dumpy right now. Things are going well, I’ve been running pretty regularly, the work is getting done. I guess there’s just this part of me that will never be satisfied and I have to make peace with that. Now that is conquering the dragon. 

What I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is making new habits. Maybe a lot of other people are too, around now a lot of people have probably given up on their new years resolutions. This speaks to the problem of only setting a goal once a year, you never get good at accomplishing goals. You only get better at forming a new habit by failing to create it. Everyone knows it’s hard to create new habits, the way you do it is you don’t stop after you fail. You keep failing and eventually you’ll fail a little less. That’s what progress looks like in the real world, not a line graph with a constant slope. I painted my hand today for my hour of drawing time. It turned out decent enough for painting a little longer than an hour. I’ve been succeeding a lot with art lately and it makes me very excited to see what the future could hold if I keep this behavior up. I really am too hard on myself. Maybe I’ll dump myself as a friend.

The Universe, The Book

This is a cube

Hey, sorry about missing yesterday, I’ll try to be better. The wackiest thing happened to me and I got really tangled up. Wacky things seem to happen to me a lot, maybe I should start telling stories about frog races. That reminds me, I’m writing a book. It’s really the story of my life and I don’t know if it will ever be finished, but I figured since I’m committing myself to write 300 words a day, why don’t we make that something constructive and I’ll write my book in the process. 

Here’s how my story starts. In the beginning there was always the infinite. Since the idea existed, it consumed all. This is the situation humans are born into, everyone of us. No one chooses to be born and you certainly don’t choose the time, place, or parents. We’re thrown randomly into a timeline, we can peak a little into the past and imagine what the near future might hold. A life of three score and a decade is enough to experience several futures. It’s no coincidence then that 7 is a holy number and a decade feels like a time frame we can understand. Then the question arises, what are we suppose to do? Why are we here? We have to answer that question and it is not a fun search. If you ask me, the answer is work. I’m putting my faith into work. Joseph Cambell would say, “Follow your bliss.” I completely agree and will say I mean 99% of what he means at the same time. This is a story with a hero. The infinite is born, but is contradictory so it doesn’t belong in this world. The problem must be taken care of for humans to not go insane. With work we can at least ignore it, but is that the solution. No, it leads us to transcend our humanity, we become infinite and go silent.

Why I will probably go to the library less

For starters because I can’t have coffee or even a sip of water while working without looking over my shoulder. Literally a couple of weeks ago a guy came over to me and told me I wasn’t allowed to have water and that he saw me drink it. That’s fine, I get it, but here’s a counter position. All these books will last forever because no one has ever been near them. The books might last longer if we prohibit people from being allowed to open them. This is my problem with rules and laws, it’s good to have them because a spill can ruin books, but it’s up to a person to enforce those rules. We’re hoping the person put in change makes the right decision on when they need to step in. I think that was a bad call on that person’s behalf. I know it’s a weakness of my own that I can’t let it go, but the place is filled with either the homeless or children, there’s an armed guard at the door. I know how to hold my drink with two hands.

That’s just a rant I’ve had to get out of my head, it isn’t the deepest reason why I’d go to the library less, winter probably is. I ride my bike there and I know it proves to myself that I’m committed to the cause, but it also makes me less likely to put in that work, on top of taking more energy. I have a really good studio set up at home and if I take the dog on two walks, I can probably get a solid 3 hours of work. Not that I’m holding myself accountable to be working that long everyday yet. Well I put in my 300 words today, I’m going to work on drawing drapery.

What do you want to tell the world today?

Initial sketch

I want to tell the world that I’m alive! There is a thought, that’s an important idea to remember, but it’s not a normal one to have. A person would have to go far off the path to arrive at that conclusion. First it requires a willingness to ask those sorts of question. If you’re struggling every minute to get by, you don’t have the peace of mind to be asking if you exist. The realities of life bang on your door everyday. On the contrary though, a person who has their needs met doesn’t need to ask this question, there is only pain to be had on the other side. When the seas are calm, you don’t curse the gods. René Descartes set off on that path, his idea being  what if I were tricked by a devil to believe everything is fake, what could I know for sure? Take a moment to appreciate the absurdity of how a person can even phase this question to themselves. Add on top that possibly no one has phrased this questioned together before in human history. This is what I think Isaac Newton meant when he said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Anyway, the conclusion that Descartes comes to is something like, “I think, therefore I know I exist.” (I think therefore I am) I like to shorten it and maybe specify it by saying, there is a thought. While I am saying this sentence, the argument of there being a thought is labeled true. Of course you could go on repeating that every second and know you’re alive, but you tend to get bored and take it on good faith.

Here’s an interesting thought I had recently because I heard there might be a new war starting. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to Iraq. I believe I was because it was quiet the elaborate hoax, but when push come to shove in this argument, I don’t know if any of these countries of people exist. I guess I don’t know if anyone outside of my house exists: There is a thought. Strange to think about followers. If I have anyone that regularly follows this, you should let me know you exist by commenting. It would be interesting to meet someone who I know nothing about, but they know my inner thoughts. Anyway The pictures posted represent the steps between a piece I’m posting on Instagram tonight, you should check it out and follow me there at drawingmylifeaway124

Did Someone Say Time Machine

This sink is too shallow, my hands hit the bottom

Rough day for me. Well as rough as my days can be. I am grateful for the wonderful life I have. I woke up at 4:30 am this morning and was wide awake. I didn’t have my phone next to me, so I couldn’t check the time when I woke up. That’s always a mistake. I have to have my phone when I go to bed. There’s too many possible things to think about and if my brain is allowed to latch on to one than the whole system will be on and it rarely shuts off before 10 pm. That said, I should try to force myself to take afternoon naps more often. I think they would help me relax and possibly give more energy during the evening. Maybe I’ll get a second wind of work. I need a second wind, I’ve felt so tired lately. Of course it probably doesn’t help that I’ve been playing VR with my friends this weekend and I’m pretty sure it gives me motion sickness. I just sort of lay down because the room is spinning, but it sounds like that’s what motion sickness is. I never would have guess.

I did some water color work today, trying to make a color piece for my Monday instagram. I’ll either have to push to do simpler color pieces or they won’t be done as frequently. One piece a week doesn’t seem hard, but when art becomes scheduled, the system likes to throw sparks and wake me up at 4 in the morning. Things are coming along and I’m still figuring out what I’m doing, but I’m putting my daily drawing in, so that’s all that matters. I put in my daily drawing for a year and I will be in a different place. That version of future Chris will know what to do, I just have to get this body to him.

Ahh Saturday, the Great Equalizer

I woke up this morning and went for a run to punish myself for not working out lately. I also started weighing myself again lately. I had been ignoring it during the holiday because it wasn’t really that bad and it would just be impossible to enjoy myself and enforce a diet. I really don’t want to consciously diet for the rest of my life and I know that if I run every morning, I will stay thin, but that’s a lot of mental effort. Anyway I ran this morning and it was nice, I really do enjoy running and it wasn’t too cold, but had a bit of mist because it had been raining. Now on one side my mind, I can give myself some slack for not working out lately because it has been raining for the last two days and my set up is meant to be outside. I wonder if that killed a lot of new year’s resolutions already by raining Jan 2nd & 3rd. 

The run did me good though, I also got my drawing work in, I’m working on this picture of a horse that I’m hoping to finish by Monday night to post on instagram. That’s the thing about posting regularly on social media is you begin to feel an obligation to the work and I want it to continue to get better. It’s one thing to suck and continuing to suck, but I think it’s more embarrassing to be good and make something bad. I know it doesn’t matter and if I have to I won’t post on social media or only post when I have something, but in the mean time the deadlines I’ve given myself seem doable and I’m enjoying myself while learning. If I do finish this piece by Monday though, I’m planning to put a little money into promoting the post. I’m mostly interested in what promoting does and if the effects are noticeable. I’d also like to get around to promoting my blog but for both I feel I don’t want to pay to promote something unless I think it was a good piece of art.

A Tragedy in One Post

My goodness it’s already January third, I thought the year just started and it’s already halfway over. The wife told me we’re going to dinner tomorrow with some other doctor couple, I might have some stuff to say about that tomorrow so stay tuned. What I did want to talk about is my challenge to myself. I’ve been feeling tired about it already so I wanted to look back at when I started my last 30 day challenge.


Sorry my wife bought some makeup/ skin care stuff from Sephora and is opening it next to me while I write this. It’s very cute because she’s so excited. She made the joke, “I’ll pretend they’re like Christmas presents from you.” I don’t think I would have picked out anything better than this. It’s just really interesting because I could walk by hundreds of dollars of this stuff and think someone left out their trash but there’s value in it to her, so I enjoy watching the experience.

Back to the matter at hand, I have to draw at least one hour day. Last month was 30 minutes a day. I’m allowed to draw more and hopefully do, but not less. Next month I hope to draw for an hour and a half and increase 30 minutes a day every 30 days for as long as I can. 30 minutes isn’t that big of a time increment so it seems feasible. I just feel tired today. After I started, I was off to the races and blew past the hour, so this is a message to chris 30 days into the future. It’s going to feel like this every time you increase the challenge and you’ll feel you want to slack off. Put up with it for a week and you won’t even notice the work anymore. If you’re too tired, just aim for the bare minimum and if you do miss a day, it’s expected, you’re going to slip up, what’s important is to try and get back on the horse the next day. You can do this, stay the path.

Tiny Tinsel

I’m sitting in my living room next to my dog. I was watching some New Masters Academy videos, a challenge I laid out to myself was to watch a video everyday. I don’t know how I could fail at that. If a person doesn’t have one stupid video they watch in a day that they could replace with an educational video, then they’re already the most productive thing I ever heard of. I was just starting to read some books when I remembered I should take care of my morning pages. I still haven’t done any drawing yet today and that’s fine because I have the live drawing tonight and know I’ll get in a couple hours. That doesn’t mean I don’t continue learning though. With my new perspective I was a little worried that I won’t be reading because it’s more important to be drawing from these books than reading generally. Not that they don’t have good information, but the person who has read every art book in the world and never made a stroke can’t create what they want to. The milage needs to be reached with the hands, that’s what I want. I said I didn’t draw yet so yeah there’s a bit of failure in that, the mindset I need to overcome is to go from viewing my progress by the minute to at least by the day or best assessing my progress over years. What leads to me burning out is every minute I’m saying to myself, “You’re not working this minute, so you’ve decided to give up?” I think everyone has a dark sided voice in their head, an argument for not learning is it just makes that bad voice smarter too. Though no matter what both the good and evil inside of us will only know as much as we do.