Tag Archives: digital illustration

Things Seen and Unseen

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I know I’ve talked here before about how easy it is to stop seeing what’s right in front of me because, well, it’s always right there in front of me. The ubiquitous becoming invisible, and all of that. But lately I’ve been thinking, too, about how often what I haven’t seen before gets automatically dismissed by my brain as non-essential because I relied on the part of thinking that makes instantaneous generalizations and assumptions and chooses to categorize things, as soon as it decides the new thing doesn’t pose a threat.
Digital illustration: Friendly Little Insect

While this rarely makes, in real life, the stuff of horror stories, as much as I like a rollicking scary tale at times, I am more concerned when I begin to wonder just how many things this autopilot state of mine makes me miss. Have I bypassed grand opportunities through lack of attention? Undoubtedly. Has my life been different than it could have been had I been more deliberate and thoughtful and thorough? Certainly. Are there people I’ve met whom I never got to know as well as I should have done, never appreciated as deeply as they deserved, never enjoyed the benefits of learning from them or being made better by a real relationship with them? That is unquestionably the hard truth.

Will I be smarter, moving forward, because I paused to ask myself these questions? That, my friends, definitely remains to be seen. I like to think that I’m teachable, but I know I’m also drawn to the easy path in life and often distracted by non-essentials when I should at least be watching where I step, so I’ll make no promises. If I do, however, happen upon any new and delightful things or, especially, people and recognize greater value than a passing glance would have registered, then I won’t consider myself beyond rescue in this regard. Plus, I might find in them the material for some fantastic fiction later on, if I’m lucky.

There’s Always Room for Silliness

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The Wriggling JellybaggleDigital illustration: The Wriggling Jellybaggle

The Wriggling Jellybaggle and his relatives all laugh

at their own selves, each other, and at each faux pas and gaffe;

at funny things, ridiculous and silly things, and too,

at serious and sober stuff and fretful folk like you;

if you think you’re too dignified to snicker, laugh, and giggle,

you obviously haven’t seen a Jellybaggle wriggle;

and, furthermore, if you have failed to join the goofy gaggle

and goggle and guffaw a bit, your average Jellybaggle

would pity you, at best a fool, at worst, a stubborn stinker,

too stupid to enjoy yourself and thump your sullen thinker

with just the touch of tickling that takes the harm and haggle

out of your life, when you could be a Wriggling Jellybaggle.

Doesn’t Matter If I’m the Only One

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There are ways in which solitude and solitary pleasures are among the loveliest, the most inexplicably un-shareable delights we can have. Even those things that are enhanced by happy sharing with one companion, or many, can only be experienced internally in our own unique ways, through our own highly individualized filters and lenses of taste, belief, experience, knowledge, and longing.Digital illustration: From this Angle

The beauty of this is that the best things I experience or encounter can be met at several different levels. Even when I am among a host of fellow travelers on the occasion, I can have that communal adventure and be guided and shaped in my sense of its goodness and meaning by any or all of those around me, while the reflections in my heart may say to me, “and yet…” or find me collecting all of the data of the moment in some private interior compartment for later examination.

In those after-times, I am at leisure to contemplate the whole and all of its components and think whatever I will, feel whatever I will, now that I’m left to my own devices. From this slightly removed angle, my own particular skew, I may find that the true enjoyment of this part of my life comes as much from within, from my imperfect yet fully tailored perspective being so well suited to make me like what I have seen, heard, tasted, and sensed in it. That is a subtly different but wholly wonderful part of living life: being able, in solitude (whether actually alone or not) to see what is marvelous and admirable, exciting and fine, to me on my very own terms.

Flourishes, but Quietly

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Digital illustration from a painting: Splashy-FlashyNo Talking in Class

Am I a showy character? It may be that I am…

A bold display of color makes me happy as a clam—

The splash of waves or fireworks delights me deep within

Enough to make me run and leap and wear a silly grin—

An anthem sung; a symphony or jazz or drumline played

Or children’s playground chanting—yes, by all of these I’m swayed

To passion and delirium, to ecstasy and dance,

But mostly, from the audience, where I can hide, perchance…

I have to tell you honestly, I’d rather you’re the star

And I the meekly happy fan who worships from afar,

For though I love the big and grand, extravagant and wild,

I’ll gladly leave that up to you and stay a quiet child.Digital illustration from a photo: No Talking in School

Expensive Tastes

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Digital illustration: The Jeweled WhatsitMy magpie nature challenges me. I don’t see any particular inherent problem with being attracted to shiny objects or distracted by what sparkles and catches my wandering, curious, childlike attention. Most of the time, anyway. But when it comes to how I respond to those attractions and distractions, I think I’m pretty weak-willed. I’m easily enchanted by the handsome and impressive, the glimmering and magical Stuff that catches my eye.

What is complicated is not that I like such things, nor even that I waste many a waking hour on admiring them. It’s when I covet them. When I spend resources more precious than my pining glances on them. When I fill up space in my home, my bank account, or my heart with them that would be far better spent on more substantial things. Love. Sharing. Living.

I hope that recognizing the flimsy character of such tinfoil treasures as most Things are is at least a healthy step toward not letting myself be led too far astray by them. But there is always danger in admiring any sort of tempting prettiness. My inventory of belongings is proof enough, especially when I go about tidying the house and come to the end of the day with boxes or bags full of books, clothes, kitchenwares, electronic devices, decorative objects, or any other kind of trinkets that are no longer so shiny and have fallen not only out of my favor but completely off my memory’s radar. Perhaps what I need to do is to train myself to look at such tempting collectibles as catch my eye with a magical pair of glasses that allows me to see how short their lifespan of use and pleasure will be, and how little the return on time, money, and energy I spend on them can possibly amount to in real terms. My lifetime’s garage sale value must be worlds smaller than what I invested to amass all of the frivolous wonders that ended up in it.

…What was I saying there? I just happened to look out the window as a dazzling butterfly tumbled past, and of course I had to follow it, and then that made me notice something red and glittery off in the distance…

Enemies Within

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Digital illustration from a mixed-media drawing: The Enemy WithinThe problem is not entirely what you have so keenly observed, my pretentiousness, my overblown supply of self-esteem; it’s not my ignorance, grand in scale yet constantly masked (I think) with all sorts of follies and falsehoods. It isn’t merely my innate streak of meanness or my cowardice or my determined inability to be truthful. All of these, I can’t deny it, appear so often as assets in unworthy hands these days that I’m drawn to them like a desert wanderer to a well of eternally cold water.

So little do I care for the consequences of any act that I never consider Whether or Not to do it, only How Much. What effects it may have on anyone else are as nothing to me, when after all, no one else exists on my plane. If this world can be a wicked place at times, full of sins and flaws that are rebranded as business acumen and charismatic charm, don’t blame me that they’re beginning to seem admirable.

What is nagging at you as the problem, really? That these iniquities have a certain appeal to you as well? That they might not be considered dangerous until there’s no civility left to compare them to, perhaps? Or that they may finally not even be considered at all?

To Eat or Not to Eat

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Digital illustration + text: Epic Epicureanism

The Creative Chaos Within

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Digital illustration: An Explosion of Style

Text: Style Over Substance

I am Ancient History

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I know, I know. You already knew that.

But I’m thinking just now of how little I fit into the here and now.

There’s so much that was part of my everyday milieu right up to today that Those Young People I see around now have never even heard of, unless they’re youthful fans of archaeology. Stuff that I thought was hip and cool and fabulous is not only dated, it’s just plain unknown anymore.

I think I might be a science project. It’s just possible that I am being studied by aliens, or at least by the vast numbers of people so much smarter and also younger than me. And they are doomed to be disappointed. Those who study me and my life will plumb the depths of my personal history, kicking up heaps of mouldering dust and struggling with seemingly endless minutiae that could lead to important and fascinating factoids about existentially important stuff, or at least about me, only to wash up, time and again, on an equally dim and arid shore of obsolescence and insignificance.

It’s not that I mind, really. I assume this must be the case, in fact, for most people of every generation. Most of us must feel something like this, whether it’s true or not. We’ll all find there’s a great deal that’s very quickly forgotten as soon as we’ve lived it. If anyone ever delves into my little history, there will be a whole lot that looks, yes, alien to them in its unfamiliar antiquity, even if it is rather recently past in real time. I may not be at the peak of what was hip and cool and fabulous any more than I once was, but I can pretty well rock the role of living dinosaur.

Digital illustration: Artifacts

I am the sole artifact in my own little segment of history.

Just My Cup of Tea

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Digital illustration + text: It's Never Merely a Sip or a Nip