Tears From the Mind's Eye

Titles are such a bother. I usually title my posts with things I might use as titles later, for sci-fi or ghost stories, or for pieces of abstract art.

For example, "Tears From the Mind's Eye" could be used to title a story about a futuristic psychoanalysis method. Or it could title a trisected stone head with turquoise-dyed water flowing constantly through labyrinthine fissures.

I often wonder if I should have taken more art classes in college. I only took one — computer graphic design — and I've already forgotten how to give a disembodied head mechanical spider legs in Photoshop. Lately, I've taken pencil to notebook over and over without producing much of a result, too anxious about failing, even when only drawing for myself.

I used to draw all the time, and not just during Algebra I, but during almost every part of the day. I created paracosm after paracosm with little blue lines interrupting reality. I manufactured superheroes, monsters and pirates with personality disorders. I loved comic strips with sarcastic dinosaurs, misanthropic children, and booze-addicted cavemen. Yes, I once made up a character named "Drunky the Caveman."

I drew a lot of my inspiration from Bill Watterson. I remember vividly a notebook-filling comic strip I drew that involved my biggest character, Snyder (the misanthropic child), meeting up with Calvin and Hobbes. After being sucked into an interdimensional Christmas tree, they all went on a grand adventure that ended with them killing Satan. At least, I think that's how it happened. Great fun, that.

But now my creativity seems hermetically sealed, imprisoned in constant, infuriating fantasies that my ridiculous fear of failure won't set free. So many ideas engulfed in anxiety, so many dreams deferred. What can I do to cut this cerebral umbilical chord?

What a bizarre metaphor.