Like many artists, I suffer from mental health issues. I’ve lost jobs, friends, and much more to my own subconscious sabotaging me, only to rerun all my failures through my brain in an endless loop, distracting me from anything good that may be going on around me that might help ground me and allow me to enjoy the little moments.
I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t the simple fact that artists imagine the world differently, better, and then get frustrated at the agony and despair that people cause to others who live on this blue rock, floating in a galaxy only bordered by imagination and lack of scientific tools. People who say, “Love everyone,” and then hunt the innocent. So many billions of dollars out there; paper, metals, land… and yet we still squabble over borders we’ve created and skin colors we cannot change. Every year, people pick a new marginalized group to criminalize, sometimes more than one, and then cry about the disparity after mass graves are found.
I long for the Star Trek ideal
On the Enterprise, everyone has food, shelter, and medical help. Period. Full stop. If they want ‘credits’ to spend on extras or luxury, they work for it. I don’t care if people sit in their rooms all day, playing video games and eating snacks. I want that marginalized kid/alien to fulfill their dreams without any pretend barriers we make. Your species, sexual preference, looks, food choices, etc., should not govern how you are viewed. Your work and how you treat others should speak for you, and you should be rewarded accordingly. All the ‘extra’ credits you have when you die fall back to the funding for the next generation, so everyone works for a living. Everyone.
Fantasy, right?
Well, yes. That is where I want to live. A world where the underdog can make it. If Rick Riordan can change ADHD into a superpower, then why can’t we? Most of his characters had some sort of learning differences that set them apart, and they saved the world with those strengths, at great cost to their own lives. That means we all can! Right?
And then there is the depression. I can’t even get through most days sometimes. I don’t see freaking out and hiding under the bed as a superpower, so what else is there in my self-inflicted world of shame that is heroic?
Hmmm…
I will think on this.
Meanwhile… I would like a flying horse as a friend, please, Uncle Rick. Even if it does swear so much that it needs its muzzle to be washed out with saddle soap. I’m not picky.
