Short Story - Addiction to Remedy

You know when you're young and show a god-awful piece of art to an adult and they coo and praise you on how amazing your work is?

Well that feeling is addictive and one of the only times I got that reaction from adults. Working my butt off to make those awful drawings was one of the only things that let me escape my home life. So I did what anyone would do, I fed that addiction. I fed it hard.

The problem is when you reach you reach a certain age the oo’s and ahh’s about your work turns to snide comments, and stern warnings that you need to grow up and start preparing for the real world, for a real job, for a real life of rules and expectations. The problem is by then your addiction is too strong, by then you are too far gone.

No matter how much you want to follow those instructions and grow up, the addiction has changed from a way to please others and be heard and seen to a life depending remedy that feeds and nourishes your soul. A remedy that would leave you wilted and dying like a flower who has been denied water, if you were to ever give it up.

So this brings me here, in New York City, a laptop bag and rolling carry-on, my only possessions and a ridiculously overpriced apartment my only home.

But when you lead a life which is half consumed by make believe worlds and half consumed with what is increasingly a broken society model, you only really need your creativity, a sketchbook, and a laptop to make the world keep turning.

In two years, my art will be on billboards. In two years, my blog will be the only source of income I need. In two years, people will know my name and start feeding their own creative addictions.

This world doesn’t need more high preforming robots. It needs more cultures, art, love, and if I need to be the person to pick up the hammer and start making cracks in the dam of stupid social expectations, then so be it. My art is honed, it’s edge is sharp, and it’s ready to break down barriers.