I am calling this piece “Epiphany”. I started this piece maybe 2 years ago? You may remember seeing a WIP of it. Never finished it. I started this up again as an illustration with a wish of calm and personal peace, similar to last year when I drew “The Sun Always Rises”. I wanted to finish it by Jan 1st, then Jan 5th, but life just keeps hitting.
This past year has been eye opening. People who I thought would care, did not care. People I thought I knew, proved they are not the people I don’t need to know. The road that is right is often a hard road, one that forces you to be uncomfortable and confront difficult things. You mess up, you learn, you start again. To see so many just absolutely ignore reality, pain, upset, and live life as if we didn’t have the most horrifying year I can remember though rocked me to my core. I’ve always been cynical, but this was more than even I could expect. We all deserve happiness and peace, but happiness cannot come because of ignorance and selfishness. That happiness is a form of toxic positivity and toxic positivity doesn’t have a place in our world.
On the other hand I saw people who I never thought would come to my aid, come and help me, my friends, and my family. Strangers, people I don’t know that well, or people I only know through the internet. Their kindness kept me from totally breaking and delving into what I can only imagine would have been a truly dark place. They brought me a grounded positivity, a positivity rooted in awareness and care.
This piece is still a wish of calm and personal peace, but it is also a wish for those to see others and make efforts to truly reach out, to truly assist others, to truly make an effort to make the world around them better. We cannot hide our heads in the sand and we can not live a life without thinking about the impact our actions have on others and the world as a whole.