Chronicles in Ordinary Time

A recent image, created for an attorney who chose not to comment upon the image, and also chose not to pay me… I can’t say that I’ll ever recommend her.
I find the bulk of my work [numerically] by trolling Craigslist, across the country. Sometimes I run into good projects; other times…

“How Shall We Then Live?” The title of a book by Francis Shaeffer, from the last century, but still a valid question. Today I watched a movie about the abduction and murder of a Wall Street Journal journalist, working in Pakistan a few years ago. He chose to interview the wrong man, and ended up paying for it with his life. There was no clear reason why he was killed. Maybe because he was Jewish, though non-religious; he was accused of being a spy, and wasn’t. His kidnappers wanted the behavior of the US government in regard to Guantanamo to change; that was his ransom.

I came across a great website today:
http://themetapicture.com/how-to-interact-with-the-introverted/
a perfect picture of my life.

We make choices every day. Sometimes, even relatively small choices can have dramatic outcomes. The things we say to the people around us can change a life.

At present, I’m struggling with a FEAR [False Evidence Appearing Real] about picking up a pencil and drawing again. I haven’t done this for a few weeks; most of my work lately has been digital. My hands have started shaking a lot when I try to make ‘small motor’ motions. Another side effect of the neuropathy, I imagine. Threading a needle is probably impossible. That’s the fear. Holding a mouse works; although clicking the button correctly is sometimes challenging.  My fear is that I won’t be able to finish the drawing I’ve laid out digitally; and the subsequent fear that I won’t be able to finish the book I started a long time ago.

Coping. Work-arounds. Finding ways to accomplish what I really want to accomplish. The ‘importance’ of what I want to accomplish in the light of a typhoon that has killed possibly 10,000 people in the Philippines; all of whom had their own goals and dreams. None of whom expected to die that day.

I don’t know what introverts do in Pakistan…maybe they move out of the major cities. So many people; I’d want to scream all the time.
I am so accustomed to my life, and my lifestyle. I’m so accustomed to my life looking like Portland. I was in Oaxaca, Mexico for a week, helping Medical Teams International with a project. The city of Oaxaca is comparable in geographic size with East Portland; and has several thousand more people. Many of the people live on the hillsides surrounding the town; they don’t have running water. Tin shacks next to stucco three story houses, next to bark huts. Electricity carried by lamp cord. Antennas on top of tin shacks…

One of my coworkers had a Margarita too many and was talking in the mostly-non-English restaurant about how Oaxaca should become like a city in the US; apparently oblivious to the fact that Oaxaca has been there for centuries. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, across the plaza from the restaurant we were sitting in began construction in 1535 and it was consecrated on July 12, 1733.  Fortunately, most of the people in the restaurant did not speak English, or we might have been thrown out.
My four companions were all rich, and very conservative, and were there for some reason I couldn’t discern. I was there to be Jesus’ hands and feet. I didn’t have much to say at dinners; because they lived in a world that was almost as far away from mine as life in Oaxaca was from me. They gave me an opportunity to talk about my interests on our last night there; can’t remember what I said.

I’ve posted this before; it’s about the only thing I can say about the Philippines, the Middle East, and all of the victims around the world.

Tags: artist depression freelance illustration neuopathy pain persistence, faith, freelance illustration, hope, material poverty, mental-health, persistence, personal excellence, surviving

This entry was posted on November 10, 2013 at 11:30 pm and is filed under art, careers, children's books, depression, Illustration, neuropathy, pain, self-employment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.