Been thinking recently about my role in other people’s lives. Like I’ve been clear in my comics about my own trauma and the various paths we take to believing we are worthy of love / towards freedom. But sorting out ourselves is not the end of the story, is it? Because we’re not islands but involved in a vast organic chaos of humanity, all the time. So once we get some measure of ‘at-one’, what do we do with it, eh?
Perhaps I’ve been on the back-foot in terms of mentoring other people due to my own crap – I suppose I’m scared of doing that Mike thing (in the comics; Mike goes all-out helping other people, but he hasn’t fully accepted that he’s worth looking after too – you see this come out in his ‘after death’ scene at the end of Lithium 10). But if I were to wait until I was 100% ‘fixed’, I’d never ever get there, I’d never be able to use my experiences to help others.
So anyway, last few years I’ve pondered this and been getting involved with mentoring/sponsoring people, and wouldn’t ya know it … it’s two-way! What a brilliant realisation, all my hang-ups about telling people what to do were unfounded, turns out mentorship is two-way when it works best. And so I’ve been getting as much out of it as the ‘mentee’. Funny that, it’s almost as if humans are built for relationship, and when we start to open up a little bit and be vulnerable, good things happen!
Its silly, writing this, I can see now that this is a dumb lesson I’ve learnt before, but I seem to be learning it again, like a dense puppy needing to be trained over and over again hehehh.
Insert irrelevant Victorian-era cgi maid desk sex image.
Fun spoiler-fact: I couldn’t be bothered to actually attach and pose that guy’s willy for this lighting test image, so I just moved him close enough that you can’t tell he doesn’t have one! 😂
Anyway, comic update: I’ve done that thing of working randomly on even more concepts and doing great big brain burps along the way, so don’t hold your breath, sorry. And thank you for all the patient, kind messages; you lot are wonderful, ya know that? How many blogs/websites out there are full of kind, caring, supportive humans, eh? Everyone does really get it (even the occasional troll), that creative stuff needs to happen at its own pace, and we all need a little hiatus sometimes, eh? How are you?
Is that title a play on ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’? If so, nicely done. Lol. :-3
Hehe yeah – I didn’t mean it initially, it was a subconscious ripoff
Cool. :-3 Happy accidents, eh? Otherwise known as miracles.
The content of this post got me to thinking upon friendship and just how deeply some’s roots can run. The notion that one can be a mentor to a friend of the same age—or there about—is something of an eye widening revelation as you simply aren’t thinking that way when you’re young.
In my teen years, I had this friend maybe a year or two younger. Early highschool, people he knew began calling him by the nickname of a character in a novel that’s required English-class reading. Immediately, I tried to get this friend to not allow/accept this ‘branding’; that the people calling him this were indeed doing it to make fun of him to his face under the guise of something supposedly ‘good’. It had happened to me to a few years before … so, I knew what I was talking about. Didn’t want to see that garbage happen to someone else.
Of course, that friend wouldn’t/didn’t listen. And when it went sour on him like I said it would (’cause punks always show their true colors), I got blamed for the ensuing hardships he faced because—apparently—had I said nothing, it never would’ve happened. Go figure. Who knew I had such control over the space-time continuum. Or that I’d waste such divine power on such trivial non-sense. Haha.
Due to all that, I just started keeping my mouth shut in regard to any and all dealings of all other friends in my life. I don’t mind being damned, but when it’s payment for having tried to do the right thing, it can be crushing.
Ah yeah that’s tough when your help gets turned around like that, all we can do is start fresh and decide again what we’re about; that risks getting hurt again but then … https://i.pinimg.com/474x/8a/d9/cb/8ad9cbff8b194004c344860db9245a97–the-velveteen-rabbit-velveteen-rabbit-tattoo.jpg
… so we need some mechanism to help us start fresh, some way to forgive – not cos they deserve it (they don’t), but because it frees up our futures.
Not long ago a friend of mine gave me a “thank you” card for no real reason. In it she thanked me for being her mentor and helping to guide her. I was taken aback because I never thought about our relationship in that way. To me she’s a friend that is traveling a similar path to the one I’ve been on for a very long time. Oh, hey that’s mentor stuff. Huh, whodathunkit. It is really nice to be able to use all of this crap I’ve learned over 30 years to help someone figure things out and not have to make all of the stupid mistakes I’ve made. Feels good.
Ah yeah that’s really cool. We often don’t realise the affect we have in other people’s lives, huh. I’ve found my experiences don’t necessarily help people avoid making the same mistakes (or if they do, I’m not aware when they do), but at least they do help deal with any shame/hangups around people’s stuff. And then we can move on a bit better, have some fresh starts etc
I have recently chosen to find the lost little Keith, long hidden away inside. A great many things have helped me get here, but in this your comics have been pivotal. You opened the world of our natural sexual being, as you opened beautiful doors to my soul. I’ve been locked away in shame, and now, many tears and much love later, I am healing. I’d like to share one bit of my dialogue with little Keith, when I discovered, in being with him, that hug deprivation is a soul killer. The first time I picked him up and held him, I didn’t know how real this was and that I should have asked his permission. Hugs are consensual.
“I want to hug you but even now I am not very good at hugging. My mother used to say she liked my hugs because I meant them. I didn’t know what to say, there was no way to say I wanted hugs too, but didn’t get them. My hugging her was a rare thing, whilst her hugging me was non-existent. So we two (you and I) are strangers to hugs for which I am so very sorry. I have pictured hugging you and though I held you in my lap with my arms wrapped round you, I just felt awkward and perhaps you felt the same. Awkward or not, I am happy to be here with you. There’s no one else can do this for either of us, just you and me and actually that is now how it should be.
I never understood how important hugs are. We’re sealed off from them, you and I, and don’t know how to let them in. They are scary and we don’t know what they mean to other people, or what they mean by them. But between us we can, I think, be different, we can want to be held and know it’s just to feel it, to relax into it, wanting nothing else but a hug.
A hug is a shelter, a place of safety, a refuge. A hug says you’re safe, loved and cared for, without limit. A hug reduces the distance between our bodies to nothing and we are held there with love. A hug is where I am your shelter in a storm, without question and with nothing held back, nothing withheld from you.”
Thank you Keith, this is an amazing thing to share. Yeah, I guess absent parents can be a super common thing for people, but in a way to have a technically present but non-contact parent can be an equally deep insult to the child, and so difficult to come to terms with (sort of implied rejection/abandonment/isolation, and all the baggage that goes along with those feelings, as you know). Great that you’re exploring and writing about this – I’ve found journalling extremely helpful in exploring my stuff as well, sort of helps unlock those gears and it’s amazing how much we can discover if we just take the time to travel into those darker places heh?! Nice one.
I have nothing intelligent to say so here is this.
Random conversation in the star trek universe. Captain = C:, First officer = FO:, place turbolift.
C: So you know the horny Orions? FO: Yup, they are green, that’s an observation I’m not racist, wait they don’t have horns? C: The other horny. FO: Ohhh. C:Guess what the closest genetic relative is. FO: You gotta be kidding, the universe is big ,I need a hint.C: OK I’ll give you the planet, it’s Earth. FO:No kidding?!! C: No kidding, guess. FO:OK, no wait that can’t be, your screwing with me. C: Serious, here is a hint, green skin, red inside, planet Earth. FO: Hmmmmm… When? C: Back when recycling ended up being the law to save the planet. FO: That was a crazy time.C: Yup, give up? FO: Yes, no, wait…. I give.
C: Watermelon. FO: Seriously? C: Yup. It started when free plastic grocery bags went away. They genetically modified the watermelon to have a handle, easier to carry. Then they did legs and an A.I. to follow the customer. They put in a vocal system to entice customers. That had to be removed mainly too creepy to have a watermelon say “eat me” all over the store. In the end the developer decided sex would be more profitable. They ended up with a sex watermelon hybrid that cost about twice as much as a regular watermelon to produce. Shortly after (300 years) that they got their freedom and a planet. And that’s why they are so horny. FO: I have questions. Answers: Vine, because it feels good, both genders, blood meal.
the end
Pickle, this is very good, I like the silliness and that the whole story is packaged up like a cracker gift, small and fun! And now I’m thinking about having sex with watermelon people, sure, sure
(Do you write lots? You should. I had an English teacher who said English wasn’t for me, and that I shouldn’t write. What I’m saying is people are wrong all the time, and we should ignore them and explore writing, art, poetry, music, everything, everything, everything, as we work out existence. WRITE!)
I had a similar problem in elementary school with English teachers. I am an English speaker. My writing is mainly in the form of technical documentation when needed. My greatest skill is this, when someone asks “Can you do this?” I’m stupid enough to say “Sure” and then go about learning how (I love learning). As for the story, I have always told very short stories, I do it everywhere, shopping (checkout line), waiting (yes they are context sensitive). I really should write them down, in fact this is the first time I typed one out.
Aha! I knew it. Yes, write. Write like a fucking hurricane my friend. It’s been locked up in there too long and is starting to giggle its way out. Bring the thunder.
Thank you so much! I truly enjoy your stories, really.
Now I’m picturing a watermelon walking on tiny legs like Rincewind’s ‘Luggage’ from Discworld. Except the Luggage eats you.
Goddamn you Alzheimer’s for talking away that brilliant mind 🖕
Hehe, but what a gift he left the world. I wonder how many such gems are hiding away in the hearts of people not in the right place/season/environment to be able to express them.
Always refreshing to hear from you. There’s so much negative out there that positive is fast becoming as rare a treasure as the fing ark of the covenant.
Also sharing of yourself is more impactful on people than most of us realize. And is a renewable resource as long as we’re taking care of ourselves.
Yeah, sharing our true selves as long as we’re taking care of ourselves, I like that yeah.
For some reason, I find this quote appropriate at this point:
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” -Soren Kirkegaard.
Ah, nice.
As long as you continue the process of accepting and loving all aspects of self, you are mentoring YOU, which is the most important relationship any of us will ever have.
As long as you keep creating and sharing, you are mentoring all that view your work. Your comics have been very beneficial in my life as well as entertaining, funny and added a lot of new possibilities to ponder.
It may be difficult to receive mentoring from those you touch with your comics but other mentors will show up in our stead as there may be infinite bodies but only one consciousness and we somehow always find those that resonate with our path suddenly, unexpectedly and in the most wildly unusual and synchronistic ways.
I have been lead down many different mental pathways lately but have found from past experience that they always link up to create a new and expansive understanding eventually. I wait patiently for the greenlights to appear on the inner launch board and then flow with it.
One of the key understandings I have found is to accept the situation, past, experience as if I have chosen it and then move with that pattern as if it is an integral and important part of my life process (cuz at some level you did and it is). This negates resistance and opens the inner valve of flow.
Thank you for sharing your self, process and creations…..they and you have far more value and reach than you may ever know.
Quantum hugs
Ah, thank you Jerry I like a lot of this. It speaks of intuition and flow and being sensitive to resonance, of group connection and individual wonder. 👍
All the better for your efforts, you are mentoring all of us in a very real way. It may not give you the full effect of in person mentoring but I for one love and support you in any way that I can, you have been a positive influence and an opener of the mind, keep up the great work, you are making a difference. A big one x
Beaut of you to say that, thank you