The Search for Happiness

Last week, I finally published a collection of sketch comics I wrote over the span of two years, from age 22–24. They’re pretty rough. Literally, all they are, are rough drafts. They’re lucky if they have been inked. I’m sure there is at least one particular comic in that collection that is completely illegible.

You know what, though? I don’t care. I had to put it out there.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

I really don’t care if nobody likes or reads my first volume of Pity Party. Pity Party was never meant to be my magnum opus anyway. Pity Party is a celebration of just doing something, anything, to prove to myself that I have hands, they still work, and sometimes they can still work cooperatively with my over-imaginative brain.

Now, a week later, I’m already thinking about how I must repeat all those steps again for the second volume, spanning the next two years which aren’t yet quite done. There are two sketchbooks that encompass that span of time, and I am only partway through the second one. I need to sit down and write more comics, because I barely had enough to make a ‘standard’ length comic book out of my napkin scrap doodles.

But, amazingly, I know I will. I may not produce regularly, or produce quality. At least I put it out there.

All my life people have tried to tell me, “Just do it!” as if the official slogan for Nike was the perfect mantra. They never really considered the fact that some of us have to work full time to cover our basic needs, and even more some of us are incredibly tired, drained, and cranky after doing so. I found it funny that the people who shouted for me to “just do it!!” were the ones who did not follow their creative passion at all, but were more than willing to live vicariously through mine.

It’s not a burst of exuberance. It’s not an excited “Hey! Look at what I made!” — No, that got trained out of me long ago. I’m so far behind, a lifelong artist coming out of self-imposed obscurity, all because I was trained to not seek attention. That is what almost killed me.

Instead, my creative passion is just to live. To survive. To find peace amidst what I now realize was abuse. To let go, forgive, and move on, hopefully to find others who are as interested in me and what I make as I am. Pity Party may be a small cry for help, but after so many years of not even being brave enough to ask, even the smallest whimper feels like a shout. I’ve become comfortable playing with the darkness in my mind, because I’ve learned that darkness is my most trusted friend.

Don’t throw me a pity party. I am already doing that for myself. Just party with me. We can be cranky pessimists who are happy in the face of ultimate doom together. It’ll be nice. We’ll make s’mores.