Loss of Companionship

The Light at the End of the Tunnel Has Been Turned Off Until Further Notice Due To Financial Restrictions

People go through so many emotions in life. Sometimes I wonder if animals do, too. But then again, many philosophers say that emotions are what make a human human. But then, after years of living, years of joy and suffering, do the good emotions outweigh the bad ones?

The first reaction to this question I imagine will always be that the good emotions outweigh the bad ones. Of course, would one ask an emo, or anyone suicidal, they might say the opposite. The rest of the world might have a more positive outlook on life. At least that is what I hope. Carpe diem comes to mind first of all, but so many say it without having the guts to stick to it.

Lately my moods have been very melancholic; my art has been very emotional. Usually I keep myself separated from the art I am making, but so much has been going on it couldn’t help but seep through like a beer after dinner; there is always room for it. The emotions fill up the voids left by a day to day life. Life would only be a bunch of shells at the beach, without any water to carry them away. And, frankly, it has been feeling good to let it seep through!

Instead of focusing on a lifelong of suffering, which wouldn’t be true anyway, I decided to make a series on a moment of life, a day, maybe a week. Seconds compared to a whole lifespan. When I think back I usually only remember the pain, many people do. Thinking of the good times is so hard sometimes because they went by even faster than the pain! They are milliseconds in a sea of billions of seconds. And so I decided to make a series on what I could remember best; the things that had happened in the past few weeks. Trust had been broken, friendships ruined, faith lost, and in the end it made me feel very alone.

But this feeling of being alone is only an illusion; there is a positive to every negative. When I am mad I really don’t want to admit to it, but I long for seeing that positive. And if one thing made me realize that, it was this series. Art. It allows me to express myself and connects me with so many people; people who can relate to what happens to me or to what I am trying to say.

And so even in the darkest of times I will grab for a camera or paintbrush. It lets me see how short lived anger, sadness, and tears are, but also lets me create something to remember it and to show to other people thereafter that there is more than the darkness, more than the pain. To end it nicely in a quote by Steve Vai: “God gave the gift of artists to the world so that people can dream while they’re awake.”