I’ve managed to live in 2019 without watching Game of Thrones, one of the most popular TV shows among my peer group. It’s not that I’m avoiding the show; I just never got into it. On the flip side, it’s hard for me to imagine how anyone could live without having seen Breaking Bad, Six Feet Under, and Buffy. Those shows have transformed me, and I can’t imagine what would life would be like if I hadn’t watched and thought about them.

Part of my training as an artist was reading many books on creativity. The common theme among many of these books was that an artist needs to be prolific, to push out as many ideas as possible, and to not worry about making them perfect. Execution, I learned, was more important than excellence (which is still important). But experience has taught me that this is only part of the puzzle. Another key component to art-making is percolation.

+++ title = “09” date = 2019 +++ Yogis wear robes, Doctors wear lab coats, which are a modernized version of a robe. Cops wear badges and security wears dark colors. Fathers grow bears to solidify authority. And what all of these costumes do is provide a sense of identity. Identity is useful for those who wear the masks, but also for those who engage with the mask-wearers. I do this too.

We were at the park with our one year old when a man with a scraggly beard and sunglasses approached us. “Enjoy these days, when they’re toddling around and cooing at you. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, and they’re never coming back.” I don’t remember asking him for advice. But this is typical, this need people have to randomly tell me I need to enjoy this moment. Just because they see me with a kid, and they remember their own kids at that age, and they wish they’d been more present, and so they’re, I guess, making up for it by giving me an unsolicited lecture.

If you’ve ever talked to yourself you’ll get it. If you’ve ever patted yourself on the back, or if you’ve ever used harsh words with yourself, you’ll know what I mean. Self talk is necessarily a dangerous habit because if we convince ourselves that we are as bad or good as we think we are, we might actually believe ourselves. Or worse, we might become what we believe ourselves to be, an exaggerated and dehydrated and deflated version of the person we really are.