Weekly Update - 94 (Patreon)

So, the doctors found out I have high blood pressure AND high cholesterol, and they want to make sure that my arteries aren't blocked. It seems impossible, for all the little I know about diet and exercise and fitness -- I'm in pretty decent shape -- but I suppose there could be something else going on inside of me. In any case, I continue to feel fine, aside from the lingering partial blindness, and I've gotten my blood pressure under control for now. We should know more later this week after another test.

Comic This Week: Gods willing, I will get it done.

Drawing: Page 126, Riley Character Sheet

Reading: Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie (I'm a slow reader and it'll probably take me months to get through it, but I might as well include it here because reading makes me sound smarter! <insert dumb fox picture here>)

Playing: Dwarf Fortress (while I wait for the steam version)

Ramble:

So they say you shouldn't meet your heroes.  I guess the idea is that when you do, this imaginary, ideal person of greatness that you've built up in your head turns out to be merely human, with all the flaws that entails. It's disappointing, I suppose, to learn that the person you idealize is merely human. It's quite an amusing paradox, really. That we find the reality of being human to be such a letdown. Alternatively, we eat it up. We're all huge fans of the "fall from grace" stories published about famous figures from time to time, when people who could allegedly do no wrong are exposed as having made mistakes or having flaws.

I've been scared to be someone's "hero." I'm scared of being held to the sort of standard that requires me to pretend I'm something I'm not. I'm scared of letting people down when they realize that for all my rambling and bravado and quasi-intellectual philosophizing, in reality I'm just kind of a dumb human who is skating along on some storytelling about some (alright, I'll give myself SOME credit) decently-thought-out characters accompanied by my mediocre artistic talent. But the sad fact is, like it or not, I am already someone's hero: I have a nephew that adores me. And I'm scared to death of the day I will undoubtedly let him down and he discovers I'm not as great as he thinks I am.

Even despite that, I have you guys. Somewhere in the world among the hundreds of people who seem to be reading my comic, I have fans. The most dedicated among those being you, the folks here on Patreon who give freely in support of this thing I'm making. It's still hard for my brain to truly process. To think that somewhere in the world there might be someone I've never met who thinks I'm great.  I... I don't understand it, but I appreciate it. I'm scared of letting you all down by being the insecure, flawed mess that I am. Honestly I think that's a big part of what these rambles are for. A chance for me to expose the reality of who I am, to break down the pressure of trying to live up to something I'm not and just be me, the whole package. Granted, I could be imagining that anyone has any expectations for me at all. I might be struggling against a problem that doesn't even exist. Brains be jerks.

But truly, there is nothing great about me. I'm just a human, with all the flaws that entails. I make mistakes, and ideally, I learn from them, but every once in awhile I don't, and then I go on to repeat that mistake. Still, the purpose of my life has been the same for a long time. If I can go to my grave knowing that I made at least one other person's life a little better with my time here on earth, then it was all worth it. It's an easy enough life-goal. A good rule to live by, I think. And if that's enough to make me "great" in someone's eyes, then isn't it easy enough so that everyone can be great?