I didn’t have or use a PC with an internet connection until I 2008-ish, so most of my childhood was spent analog, and by that I mean halfway consuming some medium, halfway waiting to consume again some medium. Stories always captivated me, whether it be cartoons, videogames, books or music, each tale unfolding like a treasure map guiding me through uncharted territories of imagination, evoking emotions and painting vivid landscapes of worlds that didn’t exist and were so far from my own.

I remember vividly a thought I had one morning, as I was walking the corner to the bus stop that would take me to (elementary) school, I really wanted to tattoo a pokeball onto my arm explicitly as a reminder to my future self to never forget that steaming hot magma ball of feelings I was still holding from watching Pokemon: The Movie the day before.

Since cartoons were airing only at certain times of the day, and I didn’t have many videogames - I could replay Pokemon Gold or Sapphire only so many times - I was often bored, waiting for the next thing to watch or read. I would go out with friends sometimes, but I never felt like I belonged - I was, or they were, in the midst of destroying my self-esteem forever - so I was always looking at media with much greater excitement than playing outside.

I’ve kept this close relationship with media and stories since then, and I’m sure at a certain point I’ve stepped in the realm of escapism. Am I still in it? I guess so, although it’s incredibly hard for me to self-insert in stories, being immersed in one has become a palliative, a painkiller of sorts that lets me free myself from the present, myself and my life, for the time the stories goes on. It’s not all self-serving or self-help though, stories, and art in general, doesn’t just save me from the pain of existance. It’s that feeling of fear and trembling when you experience something greater than you, that makes you melt into a goo on your place, that makes you stand up overwhelmed, that makes you fall back into your chair, demolished, when art shouts love at the heart of your world, and the endless gratitude that is birthed after. It’s the interweaved web of characters and their stories, the smaller moments like a hesitant caress that tells ten times more of the character than the words used to describe it, the harmony that paints on the canvas what the visuals or text can’t describe, the larger pictures of characters lives molding themes and messages that hit in your core.

At one point I started thinking, in the midst of it all, that this is what makes life worth living. It’s a bit poignant, maybe naive and coming from someone with a pretty limited life experience, but in the constant suffering and pain that has been life, those feelings are the only thing that offered me some solace and has distinctly made me feel that for this I’d gladly suffer some more.

I love stories so much, and I need to share thhse feelings. I couldn’t feel all these things by myself, I had to make people feel at least an inch of what I was feeling before those feelings got lost. I started drawing as most kids and I used to draw a lot from elementary school to high school, everywhere and at any time. Writing came when I was around middle school and I slowly slided from forum communities into cringy written RPG forum communities about those anime I was extremely into. At a certain point I also tried my hand writing novels for NaNoWriMo, for a couple years, but never finished anything. My musical awakening also happened in middle school, after I learnt how to play Sadness and Sorrow on my keyboard and my music teacher was completely unimpressed, but I had to wait another 4 years after to get a proper instrument - an electric guitar.

It became part of my identity, as in creating was the only thing in life that was worth for me - without it, what would I do, or what do I do, other than coast through dread and suffering?

One thing that all three venues held in common was that eventually, my wish to share, communicate something, mutated in a need to be good. I still believe that it all started with a genuine need to share, but the bud was there since the beginning - I liked when people complimented me on my drawings, when people said they really loved my writing, it confirmed that I was enough. But it was never enough, because it was about survival, I needed to be good or nothing would be worth, and nothing was ever worth. And ideas, creativity and fun were all replaced by practice, pain and self-hatred.

This worked pretty well into my depression, I had formed the perfect negative feedback loop, I would exclusively practice, hate my incapability and the process, and start practicing less. I would have a tiny idea, I would try to execute it, fail, and despise myself further. I would try again and again, starting from the basics, “this time I will do it for good and become good”, but keep straying away as I practiced against all the negative emotions I was feeling. I would stop. Until I was in high school, university, stopping was bearable. I still had a lot of great art to experience, I still had my education to complete, and the inertia was strong. But in tandem, my mental health would get worse and worse and more worse.

I think, most everyone that tries to improve their craft in an artistic field feels a bit like an impostor at the beginning. Comparing themselves to others, not understanding why they aren’t improving, or feel like they aren’t. I’m not different in any way, not unique, so is it just a question of lacking willpower? I know in my heart this is what I want, the journey requires some faith - keep sucking until you don’t - but I might just not have the strength to do that. And if I don’t, what’s left of me? Who am I even, if not a husk that goes on every day wishing every night that everything would end? Should I just drop all of it to say goodbye with the pain? Maybe it isn’t meant for me? Are these my dreams, or are these my curses? What do I do?

I realize, that once again, like everything, I tied my self-worth to being good in things that I once was able to enjoy for pure fun, and in the process made my life worse.