Weekly Update - 280 - 7/21/25

I've probably bitten off more than I can chew again. Oh well!

This week?

God Slayers: Yes!

Solipsus: Yes!

Nick Bonus Art: Yes!

How am I going to do all of that in a week? Who tf knows!

Ramble:

I want to take some time this morning to roast my younger self. When my parents came to visit they brought me some boxes of old books, and among these books, I found an old sketchbook from waaay back when I was still in High School.

Most of the art contained within on its yellowed pages is... unremarkable, with much of the pencil being thick enough and smudged enough to make many drawings undecipherable. It also contains a lot of art exercises, and it was probably one of my sketchbooks for an actual art class. The quality of SOME of the art is... not awful, but it's not great either. But the main thing I want to roast myself on is these original quotes I'd scribbled on some pages, making CERTAIN to sign and date each one, just in case there was any question about who came up with them. They were probably thoughts that teen me had while drawing that I thought were especially profound or notable, worthy of being recorded on these pages forevermore, for the benefit of future generations or perhaps for all humankind. I was so unbelievably full of myself back then.

And I want to do this because I often feel like, particularly with my rambles over these past few years, I still KIND of do this sort of thing. From time to time, having thoughts that feel really important in a fleeting moment and wanting to capture and share them just in case they are. While I like to think that my thoughts these days are a little more nuanced... maybe they're not? Maybe even my deepest and most thoughtful thoughts are actually super shallow or self-evident things that don't need to be said at all.

SO I want to revisit these now, evaluate myself more than 20 years later, and see if any of these quotes still hold up as well as a much younger me thought they might. All of the quotes below were written by me in the early 2000s, and my reactions are me, today.

Roasting High School Me

Quote #1: "Those who believe themselves wise but say not are wiser than those who believe themselves wise and say so."

Reaction: Hoo boy, we're off to a great start. This one is on the back of the very first page of the sketchbook as well, suggesting that I thought it was important enough to write BEFORE doing practically any art in my SKETCHbook. I'm sure I must have been overflowing, maybe even BURSTING with wisdom in my teens, like I just couldn't WAIT to tell people about all the things I had thought up all by myself. With this quote, I feel like I was trying to paraphrase that slightly more famous quote, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt," but that I somehow felt I could write it even better. Except I think I've completely missed the whole point. All I'm really doing in this quote is comparing one type of person, "those who believe themselves wise," to themselves, and then judging them based on whether or not they talk about it.

Now, it isn't, perhaps, the worst take ever written. There is a modicum of truth in the idea that those who constantly brag about being smart do often tend to be less smart than they think they are. But the way this quote is written, and the quasi-high fantasy flair I tried to give it to make it sound like a failed mockery of bad Victorian poetry makes it sound like one huge nothing burger to me.

It's also comforting to see that while my handwriting has not improved in the last 20 years, it hasn't gotten any worse either.

3/10

Quote #2: "What we know can be more frightening than what we don't know."

Reaction: Fucking how? I almost feel like I was just writing down every compact thought that came to mind regardless of whether or not it made any sense. All one must do is examine the horror genre to recognize that inspiring fear is accomplished by concealing details of the "horror" from the characters or the audience, because our imaginations are capable of coming up with things that can never exist in reality. All of Lovecraftian Horror is built on concepts of Things we do not or cannot understand or sometimes even perceive. I feel like this quote completely neglects to consider the power of our imaginations and creativity.

However, I suppose I should acknowledge that while our imaginations are powerful, in some cases much too powerful, they also generally cannot harm us directly. So there could be very specific cases where what we DO know, if that was, for example, an imminent physical threat, can be scarier than some imaginary boogeyman. But as a general quote that was probably supposed to portray some divinely inspired 100% always applicable wisdom, it's dumb. It's author was dumb. I was dumb.

2/10

Quote #3: "Which is mightier? The atom bomb or the Bible?"

Reaction: -Bangs head on desk- It's just an early attempt at a thought experiment, right? It's just an innocent question, meant to get a person thinking, it doesn't actually -- okay so I know what I was probably thinking when I wrote this, but that doesn't make it any better. I've never been very religious, so I was probably just trying to convey that the raw destructive power unlocked via the Manhattan Project was physically more powerful than a book, but that's an incredibly shallow take. And by referencing the "Bible" in particular instead of something else it's also trying to sound like an angsty tear-down of religion in general. And it also feels like I'm seriously dating myself by using the term "atom bomb," which I probably heard too many times watching too many historical documentaries with my grandpa.

I'm STILL not very religious but these days I think I might argue that concepts, ideologies and words can be far more powerful than pure destructive force. As a species, it's practically undeniable that we've accomplished so much by building new and better things upon even the rickety old structures of our past while sticking to some core ideologies that support and uplift our civilization. Meanwhile the institutions and organizations and ideologies that have existed purely to harm or destroy may rise up from time to time but they practically always crumble away into the ashes of history because pure destruction is not sustainable.

I have to believe that. Especially today.

Anyway, 1/10, stupid quote.

Quote #4: "Putting limits on your imagination is like putting reins on a 747."

Reaction: Oh, you sweet summer child, you're so close to something I might actually agree with even today but you phrased it so repellently. Would you believe that I wrote all these quotes so far in about the course of two weeks? How did I ever come up with so much wisdom in such a short time?

So yes, I believe the freedom of imagination is important. That should come as no surprise. After all, I'm supposed to be some kind of writer or creator or something. My imagination is about all the value I have to offer this world, for whatever it's worth.

But putting reins on a 747? I swear I must have heard that phrase somewhere else, like perhaps on a comedy show or something, and then I thought it would be a good idea to try and misappropriate it like this. It's a terrible analogy. An airplane exists to transport people and cargo from one place to another. Attempting to "rein" or slow or stop it prevents it from fulfilling its purpose entirely. Meanwhile, imagination probably SHOULD be limited in some regards. Unfiltered imagination can be really strange, ridiculous or nonsensical. Creators tend to succeed by filtering their imaginations to the important bits and then portraying them in a way that makes sense to others.

This was probably some early effort to let everyone know that I would let NOTHING HOLD ME BACK. Hah. I can practically imagine young me thinking that it would be a great idea to go around telling people this because it's such INCREDIBLE advice. Don't limit your imaginations, guys, SRSLY. It won't even work.

4/10

And it looks like that's where I gave up. There's no more quotes in the rest of the sketchbook. Maybe someone saw them and made fun of me, or maybe I just ran out of wisdom, or maybe I just realized a picture is worth a thousand words. Or maybe I just thought the world wasn't ready for any more of my teenaged genius. The rest of the sketchbook is just more drawings. Some of them are kinda neat I guess. A surprising number of dragons and an unsurprising number of non-Euclidian structures because I've always been a huge MC Escher fan. Eh, I probably shouldn't be too hard on myself, all that really matters is how I've improved since then.

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of self-reflection! I know I had fun.