At least I think it’s a leopard as opposed to a jaguar or something. I’m no mammalogist. Anyway, I made this way back in high school art class and always liked it. It’s currently residing on my apartment’s bathroom wall.

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photo by esc861

In my last post, I talked about doing what you love no matter how good you are at it. But it’s also important to do what you hate—as long as you know when to stop.

That might sound counterintuitive (especially considering my previous post), but the fact is that using life to figure out what you don’t want is far easier than just picking the things you think you will want. By process of elimination, it’s the best path to finding what you should do with your life.

You’ve probably already done quite a bit of this. Maybe your parents forced you to take piano lessons or play little league as a kid. Maybe you hated it… Then again, maybe you got lucky and one of these “standard kid extracurriculars” ended up being what you loved to do. But even if that was the case, it’s still important to do some stuff that you really, really hate. Otherwise, how can you really be sure that the path you’re on is the right one?

How many of us actually knew what we wanted to do with our lives when we were 17 and applying for colleges? It’s ludicrous to ask that of us. As a junior in high school, I was convinced that I wanted to study film. I had a sudden change of heart and switched to music shortly before the college application process because I realized that my genuine enjoyment for making home videos didn’t necessarily translate into a desire to be a motion picture auteur. Even in music school I changed my mind several times as to what specific career path to follow. Tons of people dropped out, because if you figured out that you didn’t actually want to devote your life to music, you had no choice but to go to another college.

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photo by visual.dichotomy

I was listening to an album of solo acoustic guitar music played by a virtuoso of the instrument, when suddenly it came to a track where he started singing. My first gut reaction to his less-than-stellar vocal ability was to say, “Whoa dude, stop. Stick to what you’re good at.”

But then I realized that’s complete bullshit.

I think it’s really important for us to be able to accept our limitations. It keeps us humble, realistic people in touch with our imperfections and humanity. But accepting your limitations is not the same as limiting yourself. Accepting limitations has nothing to do with saying, “I’ll never be able to do that, so I just won’t try.” In some ways, it’s actually the opposite of that. It’s saying “I may not be the greatest at this particular thing, but I’m gonna give it my all anyway.”

For example, I know I’m generally a better guitarist than I am a singer. If I auditioned for American Idol, I very likely wouldn’t make it very far. But the fact is, I enjoy singing, whether it’s on my own or performing live for a crowd, so I do it. I wouldn’t say that I have a great passion for singing, and that would be one reason (among several I’m sure) that I wouldn’t try out for a nationally televised singing competition. But if I really, really loved to sing and thought to myself, “What the hell, maybe I should go for it and audition,” I would do it… And I’m not talking about an alternate reality where I’m a better vocalist.

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photo by alancleaver_2000

Gas prices suck. It cost me $50 to fill my tank last time. Carbon emissions and the greenhouse effect suck, too. Even though I drive a certified “ultra low emissions vehicle,” I know those are just fancy words that don’t add up to my being “green” when I turn the ignition. It’s because of this that I have a conflicted relationship with my car. If it was nothing more to me than a mode of transportation—a means of getting from here to there—then I would have no problem saying “I hate this thing and I wish I never had to use it.”

But that’s not the case for me. Driving is one of the only times that I can feel completely relaxed, focused and in the zone. In the car (especially when driving by myself) I formulate some of my best ideas, have some of my most lucid mental moments, and even have what I would consider transcendent experiences where I feel a harmony and oneness with the world. I can understand if that sounds strange to some people, but weird as it may be, it’s the absolute truth. I have a bond with my car that’s more profound than just sitting in a metal box on wheels. It’s a little air-conditioned sanctuary for me. It’s mobile zen.

Why is that? I once read a book about people like me who have a tendency to incessantly fidget. It explained that fidgeters often focus best when several of their senses are being stimulated while they work; the key was to find certain types of fidgets (like chewing gum or scratching a rough surface of your clothing) that could be used as sensory stimulants that wouldn’t serve as a distraction to the people around the fidgeter. I think that driving essentially serves as a constant fidget for me. When I’m moving and feeling the vibration of the car while I listen to music, suddenly I feel like my mind is freed from the detriment of constant distraction. And this is why some of my most insightful thoughts and realizations have come in the driver’s seat, with music blaring, windows down and wind on my face.

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Luck has a funny effect on people. Even the most rational of us are probably guilty of succumbing to at least a little bit of superstition when we seem to be on a lucky streak. Maybe you’ve never avoided walking under a ladder, and maybe you’ve never owned a lucky charm of any sort. But you’ve probably felt the little, irresistible tug of a feeling that you shouldn’t break a habit for fear that your recent good fortune will come to an end because of it.

Psychologist Richard Wiseman (I love that last name) did a study on luck. After the inevitable disproving of superstitions like black cats and broken mirrors, he spoke to people who considered themselves naturally lucky or unlucky. Wiseman found that the difference between the two was that lucky people tended to be more open to discovering opportunities that were right in front of them all along. In one experiment, he gave subjects a newspaper and asked them to tell him how many photographs were in it. The second page of the paper said, in very large font, “stop looking, there are 43 pictures.” Lucky people would see this and stop, while unlucky people tended to skip right over it and keep counting.

In another test, Wiseman described a scenario in which the person was in line at a bank when robbers came in, threatened everyone, and ended up shooting them in the arm. He then asked whether they would consider themselves lucky or unlucky based on the situation he described. The “unlucky” folks said it was an incredibly unfortunate and unlucky situation, considering you happened to be in the wrong bank at the wrong time and ended up getting shot. But the “lucky” folks said that, since they could have just as easily been shot in the face, it was a decidedly lucky outcome.

On a recent Saturday morning, I awoke at 9am to a knocking at my door. After croaking out a hungover “yeah?” I was informed that a tree branch had fallen on my car. I glanced out my window to where I had parked on the street, and sure enough a gigantic hunk of tree was on top of my poor little hatchback, with enough foliage to completely obscure the car underneath it. After muttering a vague “shit” under my breath, I threw on some clothes and went outside to inspect the damage, all the while thinking about how financially inopportune it would be to need to pay any amount to fix a dented roof and shattered windshield. Read the rest of this entry »

Since my cartoons all end up on my webcomic site now, I figured I’d start sharing some other kinds of art on my blog.

As the date in the corner would indicate, I drew this pencil sketch almost 11 years ago. The subject is Joe Satriani, the guitar virtuoso who I was listening to quite a bit during high school and who was a big influence on my formative guitar years. Read the rest of this entry »

photo by benjaminasmith

If you don’t have white teeth, you’ll have fewer friends.

If you get a new smart phone, your life will be fuller and more connected with the rest of the world.

If you buy life insurance, you’ll have peace of mind and financial security of your family.

If you buy your significant other a Lexus for Christmas, you’ll be fulfilled by the giving spirit of the season.

***

There are a whole lot of people out there telling me what would make me happy. Trouble is, most of them are also trying to sell me something, so it’s with a healthy dose of skepticism that I listen to their advice.

But it’s not just advertisements that have been beating their messages into my head for my entire life. It seems like just about everyone has something to tell me about finding contentment. Teachers tell me what skills I need to make a living in the real world. Blogs preach their truths of what would really fulfill me. From people I know and trust to complete strangers, everyone has an opinion—and I’ve been intently listening for nearly three decades. Why wouldn’t I? We all want to be happy, so we take as many tips as we can get.

Then I realized that even though it’s nice to hear what others have to say, nobody can really tell me what would make me happy but myself. I welcome practical advice from people, but in the end I can really only listen to my own instincts to actually achieve happiness. Every time I’ve tried to use someone else’s rules, there has been a little voice inside me shouting about what I really wanted. So I would just ignore it, because how could I know better than someone who’s experienced more and been through worse?

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I have a habit of writing things down. Lots of things. everything, actually.

Part of the reason is that I’m scatterbrained. I’m bombarded by a constant internal cacophony of ideas and thoughts that have nothing to do with one another—songs, jokes, movies I want to see, blog post topics, etc. They tend to happen at inopportune times, like when I’m having a conversation with a friend or while I’m driving on the freeway. At home I write thoughts in a notebook or on my computer, away from home I write them in my phone. (I hate typing on phones, by the way, and this is only exacerbated by the fact that I am the last person on Earth who hasn’t upgraded to a smart phone.)

Another reason I write so much down is that I’m incredibly forgetful. This is probably directly related to being scatterbrained, to be fair. It’s not a trait that I’m proud of, and it can easily turn what is otherwise a well-intentioned person into an annoyance. I was the kind of teenager that would have to be told five times in a single night to take the trash out, not because I didn’t want to do it but because I would forget immediately after being asked. This characteristic also rears its ugly head when I meet new people, as it’s next to impossible for me to remember names without hearing them several times.

Consequently, I write a lot of stuff down. Some of it is so trivial and mundane that you’d be shocked to see it on my to do list. But most of it is a collection of various ideas that I need to compile into something intelligible. And for a long time I was missing a key ingredient to the creative puzzle; writing things down is not enough to get things done. It’s a great start, and essential for a scatterbrain like me with fingers in various creative pies.

But having a great idea isn’t actually an accomplishment. Following through with it is.

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I had a silly dream of becoming a cartoonist when I was young.  In my math notebooks, equations and formulas were squeezed in between countless doodles. I marveled at the artwork and humor of Bill Watterson. I was humbled by the skill of comic book artists. Then I started playing guitar and sort of lost track of the whole drawing thing.

Within the last few years I reconnected with the old passion that had been lying dormant for so long. I started drawing again and found new inspiration in some modern comics—first the irreverent print comic Pearls Before Swine, and then a number of amazing webcomics like Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and several others. I loved the freedom the web provided; freedom of a format that can change, freedom of dirty jokes that fear no censors.

But as much as I love great artwork, it had become abundantly clear to me that the heart and soul of a great comic was the idea behind it—just look at great stick figure-based comics like xkcd and Cyanide & Happiness.  A little while back I dreamed up the story of a hip, self-aware dinosaur trying to pass on his wisdom to a caveman, the brutish creature representing everything that was wrong with human nature and who would inherit the Earth after the dinosaur’s inevitable extinction.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked the possibilities for stupid humor and clever commentary of the human condition. I drew a few sketches and let the whole idea ferment in the back of my mind for a couple years, occasionally remembering that I had what I thought was my first good idea for a strip. Eventually I got myself a Wacom tablet and got to work breathing life into the pre-historic cartoon I had been threatening to make for years (plus some random, unrelated single panel comics for good measure).

So now it’s up and running, and there’s no looking back.  I’m hoping to update it as much as possible, but I’m still new and slow, plus I have plenty of other commitments to keep me distracted. But I’m really excited, and the bulk of my cartoons will now be going to this new site. I’ll be sure to continue to share some of my art on this blog, as well.

It may not be newspaper syndication, but I now present to you for your consideration a comic that has been years, in some ways decades in the making: Of The Fittest.

Please subscribe, share on Facebook/Twitter, tell your comic loving friends, and maybe even follow it on Twitter: @ofthefittest

For anyone who’s living a life of creative pursuits, being realistic about our chances of making it to the next level isn’t something that we generally take into account. Like I said in my post about the romance of the ideal a few months ago, most of us tend to live life with our heads in the clouds, and maybe one or two toes scraping the ground for good measure.  After talking with a friend about the inevitable umbrella of naiveté that we musicians have to live under, I realized a few things.

There are two kinds of artistic naiveté. One is good, and one is bad.

To be fair, it could be argued that both are bad, but nobody who has devoted their life to pursuing near-impossible goals like musicians and artists is going to lock horns with me on this one. We’ll leave that to the people who are always wondering when we’ll grow up and get real jobs. Anyway, the good naiveté is that which we use to ignore the odds of turning art into real income. I’ve been playing in bands since I was a teenager, and I’ve been spending the better part of my last five years working on developing my current band. As much as I believe in the music we’re making, as good a band as I think we are, the simple fact is that the law of averages is against us. For every band that makes a living from their music, there are hundreds that never even came close. And being good is no more a guarantee to your success than being lucky. Being smart about your music career is a must, but that’s a topic for another post.

If I spent enough of my time thinking about the enormous obstacle that’s continually in front of me, I would throw my hands in the air and give up.

Most rational people would, and that’s why some people would look upon what I’m doing with my life and be baffled as to why I could be wasting my time so thoroughly. Luckily for me, I’m surrounded by plenty of supportive people who understand why I do what I do. But even some of them probably think to themselves that while they admire my determination and passion, they’re happier to be in a more secure place, maybe with a house and a family and health insurance and something resembling retirement savings. They may be more practical than me, but they’re not necessarily better informed; I know full well what I’m getting myself into.  I just have to retain some level of naiveté in order to keep doing it without becoming hopelessly discouraged. I still do sometimes, anyway.

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