"ninety-nine" (#2 of 3 for 9/28)

There's often a reason for everything we do day in and day out; sometimes the reasons are rather tiny but often those tiny reason add up to something greater.  I have thought about how I fit in the world; recently it's been more prominent and in the forefront of my mind for some reason.  When I think about what my destiny is I usually laugh because I don't believe in destiny; I believe that we all have control (maybe not complete control but control nonetheless) over where our paths will take us.  I believe we all have the ability to look the other way amidst a decision that might affect our lives as well as taking the chance to make that choice.  There is just one problem; when confronted with someone who decides to tell me how something I have done impacted their life to the point where I am made to feel exactly what they felt, I am literally brought to my knees.  It's happened many times and it always gets me; it makes me want to create more for them; it makes me a better person to be inspired that way.  Most recently, it caught me by surprise...mainly because it had nothing to do with any lines that I put on paper...it had to do with this...a collection of words that I haphazardly throw together in an attempt to convey a message that somehow pertains to the artwork.  I write much like I do the artwork, I have some vague idea about what I want to say; an outline of sorts and a general direction about where I want to end up and unlike my artwork, I usually fail miserably at it...or so I thought.  I have always enjoyed writing things but I have always looked at writing like it was a handicapped form of artwork; it takes work to enjoy what someone writes.  It takes time and effort and in most cases, it takes the will to be in the mood to enjoy it.  For my drawings it's much easier...you can glance at a previously empty wall somewhere when suddenly, something catches your eye.  You take a second look and think, "I like that" and then move on 10 seconds later, having already made a decision about what you experienced.  A piece of artwork can tell a story in seconds where it might take hours to read something I wrote that you may or may not understand and I have always found that reason alone as being the determining factor for not taking the things I write as serious as I probably should.  Yesterday, all of that changed.  I have realized that there is more to this than the mere words on the page and to the few who read them, they mean the world.  I have realized that depending on who decides to read what I write, it could mean everything.  But most of all, I have realized that what I write and how I mean it to sound actually does get through no matter how unorganized the thoughts are or how inconsistent it happens to sound to me.  It takes a very special person to change the way I think about anything; it takes someone to sound more passionate about what I do than I already do myself.  It takes someone to know just the right way to change the way the world looks so that I might see it in a different light and that is no easy feat.  I love to write just as I love to draw and it took an enormous kick in my ass to make me see that one was just as important (if not more so) than the other.  Thank you so much; it might be true that I find inspiration everywhere but everyone can tell when I come up with a masterpiece; that's the inspiration I want all of the time.

Thank you again for making it clear to me what it was that was good about what I do.
-me