My Life..

..it’s such a mess! In other words: “Self-portrait with.. Stuff and Things!” A silly attempt to explain it at length follows below. It’s long, so feel free to ignore it.

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So.. "My Life."

_{“The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”
-- William James (1842-1910)}

Despite the risk of seeming rather unoriginal, to accompany the above thought, which I do very much agree with (not that I have any idea how I’m going to accomplish that exactly.. ), by the well-known psychologist, I’m going to throw in some more quotes about life attributed to another fellow named William: the Nobelist novelist _{(pardon the horrible pun – I couldn’t resist! )} William Faulkner. The guy seemed to know something about living and I find these two illustrate at least partially the madness that resulted in is this drawing..

<sub>“You can't eat for eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours a day – all you can do for eight hours a day is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.”

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why.”
-- William Faulkner (1897-1962)</sub>

Right. It really seems that life’s all about work sometimes, and art is.. well, I’ll be damned if I know what it’s all about so.. yeah, demons – that sounds plausible – I’ll buy that. Well, then.. we’ll agree that I’m possessed and I’ll ramble on..

I never really understood people who get bored, who say they have nothing to do. I've certainly never had that problem. My problem usually is that there's not enough time for all the things I'd like to be doing.. and the fact that there are so many of those that it's quite impossible to keep doing all of them constantly or in an organized way (even if I would be an organized person, which I'm definitely not!). So.. this is pretty much how I feel most of the time: trying to focus on doing one thing at a time and all the rest keeps falling on my head! Concentrating and getting things done requires a lot of effort as I'm easily distracted..

Often it seems that at any time, the one thing I should be doing, whatever it is, never seems to be the one that that I most feel like doing just then. The next day it’s exactly what I’d want to do, only I’ve already got something else more urgent at hand by then, and so on.. Motivation is such a fleeting thing, curse it.

This drawing was originally intended just to be an updated version of my DeviantID, but since it turned into a really complex (and quite personal) piece I thought I'd better submit it in bigger size and without text so that all the details wouldn't be completely lost. I've always loved details.. _{(and quotes.. and writing deranged monologues, as you might have noticed )}

Most of the stuff that found its way into the drawing is based on actual things that I have lying around somewhere – although they’re mostly drawn from memory and not referenced. Many of the book titles are generic, and I guess I should note that I do not have a cat, a pair of skies, an airplane, or a model of a historic church.. and not a lightsaber or a claymore either.. It was all stream of consciousness, really – I just drew randomly all kinds of things that I work with and/or find interesting until the paper was full. So, people who know me might notice a familiar thing or two.

So there, these are the things this is supposed to be about.. in all its egocentric glory. Make of it what you will. As an afterthought, I seem to have concentrated quite heavily on items and objects rather than more abstract concepts.. _{(one could argue they’re a whole lot easier to draw, though.. but that depends)}. Anyway, I’m not going to start pondering whether there are some psychological conclusions to be drawn from it here. _{Well, not too much, anyway.}

Tools: HB pencil, Photoshop, Wacom tablet. This has taken a looong time to draw.. I'm unable to give an accurate total estimation, since the work on this one was very erratic and done in small bits – quite fittingly, considering the subject, eh? 15 hours is my best guess for the pencils and probably 10 for all the digital work, including the various versions and DeviantID ideas I experimented with (not to mention the couple of hours it took to type all this down ). Anyway, a long time.

Finally, one more pearl of wisdom (no, really, it is! ) by Faulkner:

_{“A gentleman can live through anything.”}

Now that’s what I’ll try to hold onto as the philosophical guideline of my life! To just try and be a gentleman –how hard could it be?

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Also, every time life is discussed _{– even if it really has very little to do with this pic in particular –} let’s not forget the classic:

_{“ ‘Life – and I don't suppose I’m the first to make this comparison – is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.’ ”
-- Death (Neil Gaiman: Death Talks About Life)}