sometimes the intensity of the toil makes me question the process and journey. there are very few people that actually appreciate and support the level of commitment that i have put into this great endeavor. it’s easy to bitch how taxing the process has been and even in the seeming success that we experience, it feels half empty. once in a while i have a good conversation with my over the hill art buddy (41 is definitely too late to do anything significant, don’t you think?) and we consider the alternative to our lifestyle as it is now. as much as we experience great challenges to our motivation on the path, at the end of the drunken hour, we can only count our blessings and poke tremendous fun of that ‘other’ lifestyle. since we are the minority when it comes to the school of get married, make babies and acquire shit school of thought, it’s a rare occasion that we can openly validate our choices without reverting to metaphors and bad jokes. so at then of the day, try as i might, i find it difficult to have any sort of sympathy for “pain” of the toil. it’s rather cute of me that i can uphold this perspective for such a long time.