Truthishly Yours
Yeah, it's a long post. But my mom liked it.
You might recall from Blog post zero that I said "honesty is my only flex."
And I promised to be as honest with you as I could.
I meant that. I did. But it's...tricky.
(I've been using that word so much lately that Run-DMC are living rent free in my head. Shut up, you guys, I'm trying to write. God.)
What was I talking about? Ah yes, truth.
My truth right now is that It's November 14, 2024 as I'm writing this, and I’m still grieving the election results but I’m in a different stage of my grief now.
The writing stage.
You didn’t know that was one of the stages of grief? Well, it is for me.
Whenever you get punched in the gut, you have to stop and figure out how to breathe again. You have to convince your abused body that it even still can.
And as usual, I’ve re-learned how to breathe by writing.
I started writing this before the election and intended for it to be my second post. And then…well, you know what happened. It just didn’t seem appropriate to post about anything but that tragedy, so instead I wrote Special Election Bulletin
But despite all recent evidence to the contrary, I still think the truth is relevant.
Truth is one of those things that is ostensibly simple, but…actually requires a long-ass blog post.
It’s tricky.
You can't offer the most vulnerable parts of yourself to just anyone. I think it's fine to say that people need to earn your vulnerability. But in a public platform that’s tricky complicated.
It’s complicated because my audience here can't earn my vulnerability. Some of you reading this have proved yourselves to be safe spaces for my truth and I’m so grateful for you, but I have no idea who else might see it.
But what I’m trying to do here won’t work if I’m not vulnerable.
So…what to do?
Public figures need to hold something back for themselves and their inner circle. It feels batshit crazy to call myself a public figure as I sneak around in my cloak of anonymity, but if things go the way I hope (or half hope /half fear) there will eventually be a lot more of you, and I worry about how I'm going to handle that.
It’s…problematic because lies of omission are still lies and can be as damaging as the flat-out nonsense that certain public figures are spouting with seeming impunity. Always be wary of those three little dots in the middle of a damning quote. Sometimes they say a lot. And bad actors, (no, not the ones in those baffling adds for chewable Viagra), but the political monsters that roam the earth just being fucking terrible...
What? Oh, yeah, the three dots. Well, right there I was just using them because I trailed off into a little mini-seizure of hatred for those particular political monsters, not because I was leaving out some crucial piece of information.
I hereby swear to never use those dangerous three dots in a nefarious way.
But, more than that, while there are some things I probably won't talk about in great detail here, I promise to never omit anything that makes my life seem cleaner and easier than it is.
"Radical honesty" is a term that is being slapped around as frequently and casually as catnip mice are batted around my house. And with good reason. When someone tells their story as honestly as they can, it’s one of the most powerful things a person can do. I truly believe it can heal the world.
But, unfortunately, when something so powerful and meaningful gets snatched up in the amoral jaws of capitalism…
Don't fear the three dots here, I'm just trailing off because we all know what happens, right?
It gets chopped and formed and filtered and photoshopped and until it is literally the enemy of what it was trying to create in the first place
Our culture preaches that connection is the most important thing, while showing you all the reasons that you are that one unlovable outsider, skulking in the bushes of the happy households shown in social media montages. You are the one who is too uniquely broken to qualify for Wabi Sabi. You’re broken in the wrong places.
Why do I keep saying “You” when I’m really talking about me?
Because it’s easier to hide behind the abstract, but also because I’m hoping that at least some of you can relate.
We claim to know that those images online aren't reality, but underneath our feigned sophistication, there is a lonely kid who absorbs all that bullshit. At least there is one inside me. And admitting to this is the kind of vulnerability that I'm trying to offer you.
A couple years ago someone sent me a video that was knocking around social media where this guy was drawing people from life on the subway. The person who sent it to me knows that I often sketch when I'm out in the world, and they sent it with totally pure motives, thinking I would enjoy it.
I didn't.
Why?
Because the artist dashed off these incredibly detailed and highly rendered drawings in the time it takes me to crack open my sketchbook and find my pencil. I mean, I've been drawing since dirt first became a thing and my little coffee shop sketches never come out looking like this. And because I can be an itty-bitty person sometimes, it didn't inspire me, it made me feel like shit.
But just as I was getting ready to crawl into bed with a 6 pack and a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, I realized something was off about the videos.
There's a reason that my sketches from life never look like that.
(Spoiler! It’s not just because I suck!)
For one thing: people move. (I swear the second I start drawing someone, no matter how much of a clever ninja I am about hiding it, they just feel my eyes on them, and they move.)
You know what else moves? Subway cars. They move and stop and shake which makes your hands, your pencil and your drawing shake, which makes it very hard to get lines that don’t also shake.
Also, just the shading on these drawings would take much longer than the time implied here. No matter how skilled you are, some things just take time. It’s not like you can cook a turkey in five minutes just because you’re a great chef.
(This is what it actually looks like when you have 30 seconds to sketch someone. Or at least how it looks for me. Of course these are from 2019. I’m much better now. 😆)
So I watched it again, paying more attention to how it was filmed. It shows the artist’s subject, then a few rough lines are drawn to indicate proportions (and these lines are rough enough to look like they were actually drawn on a moving subway car ) then suddenly the camera zooms in and all you can see is the drawing, the very still and non-subway riding drawing. Also the way the video is cut together leaves out some very important steps in the process.
It was staged.
There are some other clues that give it away, but you get my point.
It’s clear this artist is skilled. Why couldn’t that be enough?
(Note: I looked up the video today and it seems to have become a bit of a controversy. I have no interest in getting in the middle of that and I’m not looking to shame any artist. )
I understand the temptation to stage something like this to distinguish yourself in a world where skilled artists seem to be a dime a dozen. In fact, I understand all these attempts to resort to enhanced reality.
Because I want you to know who I am, but I’d rather introduce you to the person I wish I was.
Unfortunately, being admired for things that aren’t real, never feels the way you want it to. Even if no one but you knows the truth.
I’ll feel like shit because I lied to you and you’ll feel like shit because my "ugly truth" appears prettier than yours.
I’m calling it out because it’s not a victimless crime. Things like these videos train artists to have impossible standards for themselves and that’s fucking crippling. Feeling like you’re never going to be good enough no matter how hard you try doesn’t exactly motivate you to try.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the most talented artist to ever grace the earth.
But usually when I watch artists that are so freakishly talented I can only shake my head and tip my cap, it doesn't make me feel like shit.
When I watched Kim Jung Gi (RIP) draw, it made me want to draw more. Even though I will probably never get that good, it made me want to find out how good I could get.
I’m as honest as an open wound when I write. I’ve trained myself to be brave enough to do that.
But when it comes to sharing it…
Well, I’m still training myself to be that brave.
Because:
1. People can use your vulnerability against you. And,
2. People can suck. I mean, wowwwwwww can they ever suck.
Seriously, people are the worst, am I right? I see more evidence of it every day. The more I hear about people, the more I like cats and beer.
But here's the tric- er- perplexing part:
They're also the fucking best. Damn it. There are people in this world that I love so much I could just explode in a cloud of glitter and rainbows and kittens and ice cream cones.
Stupid paradoxes. Why must you complicate things so?
My point is, loving these beautiful motherfuckers, is sometimes the only reason I stick around this dumpster fire of a world.
And all that good lovin'...it's not possible without vulnerability.
No, sorry, there is no loophole hidden in those three dots. That's it. You want to truly connect? You gotta show your real self.
But we think maybe if our skin looked a little bit better and our drawings were just a little more casually perfect, maybe our “real self” would be okay to share.
So we end up with a very edited version of reality pretending to be reality. As "reality" TV is to actual reality. The "no makeup" look that you get with, y’know, the really good (read: expensive) makeup.
And that is what keeps us feeling alone.
So, I'm really going to try to be brave.
Because I don't ever want to make you feel like shit.
The truth is, sometimes my drawings are ugly and my writing is stupid and I can't figure out why the hell I'm bothering with any of it.
But I’ll keep trying. I hope you will too.
Love and Hisses,
K