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THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 30

Added 2024-07-25 00:02:19 +0000 UTC

I have become one of those corny “every day is a blessing” people. I looked down my nose HARD at those types when I was growing up. I was cynical without having experienced the neverending Smörgåsbord of life. I was MAD magazine cynical, I later saw this as Simpsons cynical & then Daily Show cynical. It's an unearned, protected cynicism that doesn’t actually understand or experience the world. A worldview learned from jesters. A turtle hiding in its shell. Over time I saw that I just couldn’t be cynical about things & attain what I wanted. I had to go forwards & experience the world for myself. Having three knowitall teens in the age of knowitalls really helps me to know the smell of this unearned cynicism when it wafts in front of my nose. I also just know the smell from myself. It is the smell of fear. Fear of the emotional damage that just is part of life. The thing that I realized after the one-two punch of my mom dying & then having the stroke, losing my ability to draw or walk or talk or do anything like I used to, was that I am a lot more resilient & stronger than I knew. Imagining these things was actually worse than living them. But I was on this path previously. I have always been on this path because I knew when I was young that I was a chickenshit. Bravery had to be learned, but I valued it. If I had stayed the way I was as a kid, a little chickenshit knowitall who was afraid of life I would fit in perfectly with people nowadays. But because I valued bravery, strength, determination, I was able to change the way I was going & determine my life for myself. I have no fear of approaching the world head on