Greetings!
Today is not the Apocalypse. It might feel like it but it’s not. At least, it’s not the one pop culture keeps insisting that it is.
From Wikipedia:
Apocalypse has come to be used popularly as a synonym for catastrophe, but the Greek word apokálypsis, from which it is derived, means a revelation.[7] It has been defined by John J Collins as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, in that it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.”[15] Collins later refined his definition by adding that apocalypse “is intended to interpret present, earthly circumstances in light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to influence both the understanding and the behaviour of the audience by means of divine authority.”[15]
The divine sends messages. Whether we get them depends on whether we’re tuned to listen.
These Days ...
Wake up around 3 am. Drink two cups of coffee while internet scrolling/uploading designs/completing designs in Photoshop/doing marketing stuff. Wake up the house. Make and eat breakfast. Get into the uniform. Drive to work. Sort mail. Deliver mail. Have lunch. Go back to delivering mail. Return to the station and sort the undeliverable mail. Shop on the way home. Have dinner while watching something entertaining. Work on art. Get ready for bed. Sleep.
Repeat.
There are variations each day. I work on different designs. We have different meals. On days off I cook or spend more time on art or we run errands together. There are doctor visits and trips to Costco and. lately, trips to sell books at Half Price Books.
The routine could be comforting. It could be boring. It’s both. Of course. Life is rarely just one thing or another.
I think about Apocalypses regularly because our culture seems to be obsessed with them. Mostly it seems to be obsessed with the end of the world version. Pop culture has been feeding us different varieties of doom for decades. At least one of our dominant religions thrives on reminding us that we are in the End Times. The pandemic continues. Russia invades Ukraine. The song says, “No one can convince me we aren’t gluttons for our doom”.
But …
People still have children. People still make plans. Start businesses. Go out in the sun. Fall in love. Engage in life as if life will go on. That’s one of the harder things for me pay attention to when I’m feeling/thinking like I’m stuck. Life is not black and white, either/or, good/bad. It’s a mix. It’s a continuum. Once upon a time, realizing this was an epiphany. Now it’s something of which I have to remind myself.
Stories of doom and hubris and failure and survival are valuable. They’re also easy. A story, we are told, requires conflict. It’s not a story unless someone is disagreeing with someone else. Nonsense. I do think we need more stories of cooperation and caring and carrying on. We model ourselves on what we can see. We follow the examples we are shown. Or we resist them. Or, most often, we do a little of both.
What am I talking about?
Mostly I’m reminding myself, again, that life is complicated. The thoughts that my brain feeds my consciousness are only as good as the inputs my brain is getting. If most of what l I’m seeing is tedious doom then most of my thoughts will circle around that doom. Different perspectives are needed. It might be time to see the world as a cat does. Or a bird. Or a tree. Or as another human does. Preferable a human who isn’t stuck in the same spiral I am.
The divine sends messages. “We are complicated. Our lessons are complicated. Be at peace with complication. Remember to dance.”
Mugshots
This week’s process GIF features two things everyone loves – pirates and pandas. I’d like to think that I was the first person to think of combining these two flavors but, after I’d finished this design I took a look online and, wow, there are a lot of other versions of the idea. I do like my version the best.
This design is available on mugs in my Zazzle store and all sort of other schtuff in my Redbubble store.
Colors Out of Space
Below are the second and third illustrations I did as page fillers for Midnight Echo #6. The black and white version is what appeared in the magazine. The color version are new and can found on schtuff in my stores.
That’s it for this week.
May your apocalypse be epiphany.
May you find joy in complexity.
Remember to dance.
