Blogspot.com's slow in connecting from work today. Which sucks because I have jack shit to do right now. Luckily, I can update through blogger.com and that connects reasonably well, so here goes.
Can I just say: I hate people's priorities.
No, war is not important. No, money is not important. No, the economy is not important. (This coming from a guy who works for a large worldwide financial company)
No, computers, technology, routers, code/hacking tricks, ARE NOT IMPORTANT.
No, the fact that you can't update your damn department's website's third word of the fifth paragraph on the third page under the second menu item right now because Documentum WebPublisher (what our web department supplies to the rest of the company) is sluggish, IS NOT IMPORTANT. We'll fix it for you, but for the love of God and anything else holy that I don't believe in, quit taking it all so DAMN seriously !!!
You are not your job. You are not your paycheck. I don't REALLY want to regurgitate Fight Club here, but it's true. You are not your high bandwith connection. You are not your collection of a gazillion movies you don't watch but downloaded because otherwise it's a waste of your 24h/day connection to the web. You are not the deadline for your department's annual figures being published on the damn intranet.
I more often than not find myself wanting to smack people over the head and getting them to think about the shit they talk about. Who cares if you're 'nearly broke' because you only have a few hundred bucks in your bank account anymore ? Who cares if you're 'starving' because you haven't eaten anything in three whole hours ? Who cares if you can't get a girlfriend because it's been DAYS since your last one night stand ? Who cares you're having the 'worst morning ever' because you got drunk on a working day's evening ? Get a grip...
But those are just the 'Egoverse' people. Those who define their universe in terms of taking out their trash, paying their rent, and watching Leno or whatever. I can't really blame them, as you can't blame a homeless, dying junky for being high instead of 'facing reality'. Escapism is perfectly ok - I'll explain in a short bit why I say that.
What I *do* have a problem with is people who take everything so damn serious. Religious freaks. Accountants. Lawyers. I.T. geeks. Movie buffs. Comic book collectors / trivia buffs. Managers so high up in big corporate culture - they all forgot what it's like to be a human being and transposed their definition of self onto something outside themselves, something they elevate to a godlike status because it is now the Most Important Thing In The World.

Now, before I continue, I must admit to the appearance of a big level of hypocricy here. My entire life I've been an excessive escapist. It's my very nature to not feel remotely comitted to this reality, and whenever I can, I drift off into any reality my mind finds itself in. Every day is like being drunk when you're me - thousands of things happen, you meet the weirdest people, everyone's bothering you for something, and then sleep. And so goes another day and another and another. And you're walking through it like a dream, watching, wondering, but somehow a bit distanced from it all and unable to quite take it seriously.
At the same time, I'm a workaholic. Especially when it comes to my comics. I take comics extremely seriously: they've ruined my life, one might even say. I can't keep a 'normal', healthy relationship because finding a woman that has peace with the idea of always being second priority after 'my art' makes a needle in a haystack seem like a three second chore on a sunday afternoon in the sun. Every life decision I make revolves around my comics, and I've often been accused of not being able to discuss any topic without the word 'comics' or 'strips' entering in somewhere. I sincerely can't help myself there - as I'm sure I'll bring up again in this blog sometime, the Probeersel Quintology lies at the heart of this problem and stems from a sense of fate. I believe I was put here to draw those five books, and say what I had to say, primarily. It's - to a limit - beyond my control: when my drawing hand itches or an idea pops into my head, drawing takes priority over eating, sleeping, bathroom breaks, everything.
Not only do these two traits make me seem paradoxical right now, they obviously clash with my previous statements. However, let me try and make a bit more sense of it so you'll see my final point.

I already made it clear that both qualities I highlighted about myself are somewhat beyond my control and part of my nature. But obviously I can't use that as an excuse - I believe every part of one's nature can be controlled if enough effort is put into it. But here's how they make sense: I do NOT put the major importance of my existance onto something external. Even though the Probeersel books may seem so, they are physical manifestations of my INTERNAL urge to express something I felt - with all of my being - that needed to be said. I put a large amount of importance onto 'spreading the word' on these comics, and several other comics, for one simple reason: they are all, without exception, new and interesting examples of the 'ninth' art. And art is also not per se what matters, but another example of what does: self expression. Venturing 'out' into your own self. exploring what it is to be human, to be alive, in any way possible. You only have one life, people ! Do you really want to waste that away in chastity in service of some higher being of which you may or may not have any idea exists and rely on other people's written-down ideas on how to serve this being ? Do you really want to waste it away on gathering pieces of shiney metal that only represent power because someone got it into their minds once that it does ? Do you really want to live in the same crummy house your entire life because some corporation keeps launching gadgets and fooling you into 'needing' them ? I can go on forever, but let's face it, if you quit taking the things that govern your life so damn seriously for a moment, I'm sure you can think of your own examples.

So stop taking the 'outside world' so seriously. It's been built by people who also had the wrong priorities, and it's a miracle that something like art, philosophy, literature, music, travel and such explorations of the human essence and self still exist, because the way it's constructed, it teaches us endlessly to not take any of THOSE things too seriously. Turn the table around. Make it important to be human again.
If this is too hard to do rightaway, start small. Take short bits of time off your 'important job' to surf the web for anything that may interest you. Explore who you are. Start taking interesting vacations to places you've never been before. Take risks. Try new things. Visit museums. Read new books by people you've never read anything of. Watch new movies. You only have one life. For the love of anything worth loving, isn't it about time we start living it to the fullest ?

René out.