Gifts

    what even is a gift? exists twofold, perspective of the sender and the recipient. is a gift not a gift if it is sent with certain motives? my gift seems more valuable when i make it and give it for the reason of "i just felt like it and i was thinking of you, and giving this is the right thing to do. i'd want anyone to do the same for me." that gift is way better than "i am giving this gift because i feel like it will make me look like a better person in my eyes. i am trying to prove something to myself, that i am generous and thoughtful and worth being remembered, so i will give this to you."

    usually this falls flat and blows up in my face. i go out of my way to draw something, make something. the whole thing feels worthless and embarrassing once i make it and give it. as soon as i do, i just want my thanks, or recognition, or some sort of interaction from the recipient, then depending on what happens, i'll most of the time just try erasing any thought or memory i had of making or giving the gift. it seems deceptive to myself. it's not authentic and not valuable if it doesn't give me the response i want. then is it true that i had wasted my time, if the other person does not know any of this? after all, it is a thoughtful gesture in the eyes of the recipient, even i don't communicate my intent.

    as for the recipient, i can't say much since i'm not in their mind and can see how it would feel to receive a gift. the worst response i think to receive is it being ignored, instead of being declined or being asked why.  the best response to get from giving a gift is to receive one in return. that fuels the earlier notion i mentioned. i could have the reason of giving a gift, expecting something in return (either me expecting to give myself praise or the like, or the other person also making a gift for me). it seems like a poorer reason for me to give a gift and expect anything in return. 

    yet... no gift is really a gift, is it? it is only a transaction. a true gift has no expectations, no recognition, nothing. it is transactional in the sense that an action is performed and some kind of social benefit is returned. what will make this all easier is removing the ambiguity. a gift is really gray and not black and white. i want it to be. the transaction fails or succeeds. i get what i want, or i do not. the wise response is to say "so what?" if the transaction fails and you are not given what you want.

What Can You Do?

    saw one of my internet mutuals post some art, it got so much praise. everyone's fawning over it. i hate seeing that. contributes to an unhealthy relationship with the internet to see someone getting so much praise and love and attention. that may be to discredit myself, who also posts art and has about 1800 followers and i also get praise too but... what is it really worth, when i have other things i am more passionate about than art? do you know what i think is worth more praise? myself. me. recognition for being who i am. someone who loves my flaws. is that even possible? i don't. i feel more aware of identifying myself by my negative traits, that's easier. identifying myself by positive qualities is too difficult. but it may not even matter because reality is primarily subjective and i think the most important kind of love is self love, which i'm not even good at, so... yeah. if i loved myself more, maybe i'd be able to handle this whole situation better.

    part of me says i just do not have an adequate support system. excluding family, there seems to be no one. but for the few that are there, we engage so rarely or have shared so little that i dont even think i'd call it a sufficient amount of support. in the end, you can only rely on yourself to even live.

    i just wished i got a few more thank yous and some expressions of gratitude from my husband too. but nooo, he's been unemployed for over a year, what can he even do? it's not like he can even get me a gift or take me somewhere nice, out of the blue.

Still Life

This 30-minute expression had carried

the awful payload that showers me

with what? Is it

Makes me looks good.

A thoughtful thing to do.

You recall the very sight

and the presence of such a thing

brings you to roll and sneer

What million things this world

cannot offer or had you been

struck a little different or

smiled

or felt it was truly you

Maybe it would be valuable

Listen...

I'll keep it at arms length away from you

you don't need to know anything... 

10 years

 i looked at a drawing from someone and it reminded me: how much do the stats matter? it always catches your eye. it means you got noticed. sometimes its a well-deserved break that says something paid off. you compare things a little. you look at the numbers between them and your own. at first it is an annoyance. "how come i don't have those same numbers?" then as you continue looking at your own work, you keep looking, you go a bit older, you see how far time has gone.

it has been 10 years since i started making art. a lot has happened in that time, but i'm not sure what to make of it. there was drama, fun, and a lot of interesting moments. met a lot of people, too. that was the goal i had going in as an artist. i became an artist because i didn't want to be a nobody. i wanted to be remembered by someone, or leave an impact or some impression behind. that goal was achieved a long time ago, so i wasn't sure if there was any goal at all after that. it was just, well, draw. spoil myself. just draw what i like and post it. it didn't really matter if anyone liked it or not. i did it for me.

that was the second thing i had in mind. my art was strictly to remain as a hobby. i did make some money off of it but it never got too far. commissions were not a regular thing. the point was to indulge myself on the regular.

it feels odd looking on the past like this. i knew pretty much no one at the start, made art and a community, then got to know a lot of people. and yet... i'm not sure what to make of it. i feel just old and washed up at times. i was 18 when i began the art and now i'm almost 30. i'm getting older and there's other priorities that are taking over. career, marriage, personal, mental, physical, social health. i don't particularly talk to a lot of people online anymore, at least on a regular basis. there's maybe... two at most.

a lot of people have come and gone. I can say much about the people i've met, but that is a long story in itself. i wanted some fame, received it, and now what? i can only keep moving so far, right? or keep doing the same thing for so long? how long will it be until i'm gone for good? sometimes it seems all that is left of me is a chunk of loyal followers and fans and good art but nothing more. 

a new pursuit

today I announced on Furaffinity the debut of my DeviantArt. introducing... AI fetish art! and the response?... overwhelmingly negative. but that's fine, since it doesn't bother me.

I've been making my own art for 10 years now. it's been great. I went in with the whole goal of doing it for me—no matter what someone thinks or says, it is my own, and it should serve and satisfy me first. that's still the case, even here with ai art.

is it soulless slop with no meaning or depth? yes. does it arouse and get me heated? yes. that's why I make art in the first place, ai or not. are you disappointed? good. do you love it? good! there's no need for damage control. bad press is good press. I'm still going to be making normal, human-made art anyway, so if you don't want ai, just ignore it. it's on a different website anyway. 

Work... Why?

work. why does work exist? a third of one's life spent as dictated by the clock, to get money, and money spent to live. money dictates life, it seems. ideally, i'd like to work just whenever. i pick up and put down work whenever i want. i can take a week off if i wanted to, then the next week work 60 hours. i don't get to choose when to work. i technically do, but that puts so many things at risk, neither do i want to degrade my reliability at work. i don't think i can just take time off whenever i want either. ancestral life seems so much better and happier with what work is. the clock didn't control everything, neither did money.

i'm going to take two hours off today and add 2 in the middle of the week. i'll take those two hours off to go somewhere far away and quiet and secluded. but how much longer will this go on? that extra time today is just a bandage on an otherwise horrible wound. i'll end up going to work tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, for years and years. i want to quit, but cannot, because it is too late and i don't have the money to just take a trip wherever i want for a long period of time. everything depends on me. will i even feel human after all of this?

difficulty balancing everything

 you talk to yourself now as you sit far away secluded in nature... ultimate solitude. how does it feel? what do you see? who are you? at first i was like "oh this is like when i was hiking at Beale AFB" then something hit. the fact i thought "this is *me* time and this is what i do that's special to me."

what about hobbies? music, photography, that... you used to do them but you masturbate too much, you vape nicotine. stretching? what happened to good habits?is this really how things have come? you can make a change, you can improve your live... it just takes effort and time. have faith in yourself. but there are so many things to fix. where do you start? how? do a lot or a little? do you write down your thoughts and progress and track things or no?

the journal, remember this? you journal a lot and it has seen everything: good and bad and funny and boring and sad memories. maybe try looking into those old journals for guidance. keywords for this whole thing, the plan: stress relief, my space, spirituality, mental health, hobbies, journals, bad habits, day to day peace and calmness. it *is* possible to find joy and peace in life and the present and be grateful and happy. all it takes is the right perspective. just one outlook can change your life forever. it is possible to change your life one day and you can do it, you can do anything.

  

that was a journal entry from yesterday, sunday. but today is Monday, it is 6:30 am, and i am at work. but my morale is low. i don't want to be here. i want to go home and just sleep. i want to have inactivity. some period of time where i truly do not have to do anything. but i can't just stop either. as much as i want to run away for a few weeks, that cannot be done. it seems infeasible, impossible to do such a thing, because if i don't work, then everything goes to hell and everything that has built up and led here will crumble. money really does make the world go round. money allows everything here to happen. if i had more money, i would be happier, i think.

sometimes i feel i have no purpose but to work. my spouse cannot work at the moment. so all the pressure is on me. i left the air force in may 2025. got married in may, left the air force, moved to Pensacola during the summer, moved to flagstaff to go to grad school, dropped out of grad school one month later, moved again back to florida, got a new job at Hurlburt field, new house. thanksgiving and Christmas were annoying, the planning and the family thing. but nothing has defined being here really except work. because if i don't work, my spouse and i can't be here. we can't live if i do not work and put a roof over us and food on the table. solitude seemed to be the most important thing in my life and now it seems to be gone.

when i look back on fond memories in the air force, i don't think about the people, or the work, or whatever. i think of the times i hiked around on the huge empty land on base. or walking around the town i used to live in, Wheatland. the other natural places around i went hiking. spenceville wildlife area, bobelaine Audubon preserve, hidden falls regional park, point defiance, so many lovely places that I've been to countless times. despite the awful mental health problems the air force gave me while i was in, these places felt like a huge piece of me. i didn't know it back then, and even now, i am doing things now that my future self will look back on--will he be fond of it?

glimpses

 i left the air force in may 2025. went to Pensacola for two months because i was going to grad school in flagstaff later with my gi bill. so i moved from California to Pensacola, then from there to flagstaff in august. went to school for a bit but it wasn't my thing. did not enjoy it, and was not the path i needed to do. plus the gi bill wasn't paying enough to support myself and my husband who is unable to work. so then i started a job search and moved to fort Walton where i would go to work at Hurlburt as a network administrator. we move again in November.

then i rented out a house, big house, very nice house. then had to plan for holidays, visitors on thanksgiving and Christmas, and i was just sick of that. but since then, nothing has really defined being here besides work. that's all the meaning and purpose I've found, because if i do not work, everything collapses. before i was married, i lived alone, and had a lot of solitude. it allowed me to make sense of life and everything that was happening by letting me effectively talk to myself, or reflect, or have spiritual health. but since getting married and after moving and dropping out and moving again, and moving back to florida, solitude was such a hard thing to get. it still is.

i would love to just go away for a couple of weeks. go to the great plains and be in a huge grassland secluded from everyone and everything. but that is not feasible, not realistic, because if i do not work, then everything goes to hell. i can't be at home without having the reminder or thought of the fact that i'll be going to work the next day. work being the thing that defines life now is horrible. I've had brief and periodic glimpses of true peace and relaxation out alone wherever--on the trail or out in nature--and i would love to have something like this peace and relaxation be embedded into my daily life, but these glimpses are only that: glimpses. they are so temporary that their weight and value are unable to equal that of the very knowledge that work is all there is...

there is no buffer, little space, little stillness. it was a significant part of life that was mostly taken away. yet now, work is necessity, survival, obligation, and i used to have meaning outside of it. 

there has to be something i can do, even just this weekend. for one whole day, be away somewhere. get up early in the morning before sunrise, and go somewhere far, but not horribly far. 2 hours or less. then i get back home just to sleep. that entire day can be spent somewhere nice. but i don't know many spots around me i can do that.

True solitude

(To chatgpt about one night alone in an RV in remote countryside)

That makes a lot of sense—and you’re putting words to a kind of solitude most people never articulate.

What you’re describing isn’t just being by yourself; it’s acoustic and social invisibility. It’s the freedom that comes from knowing your presence doesn’t leak into anyone else’s world. No ears nearby. No implied audience. No self-monitoring.

“You are not alone if you can be heard beyond what can be seen.”
That’s a sharp insight. Solitude isn’t just visual distance; it’s the absence of consequence.

Why that RV experience felt so powerful:

• No performative layer – You didn’t have to modulate yourself. No “inside voice,” no social compression.

• Permission to be unfiltered – Screaming, being weird, being naked, being loud—those aren’t about shock; they’re about not having to translate yourself for others.

• Contained safety – Unlike hiking, you had shelter, ownership of the space, and no ambiguity about whether someone might suddenly appear.

• Temporary sovereignty – For one night, that space was yours, not shared, not borrowed from public norms.

You’re right that hiking doesn’t give this. Trails are public even when empty. There’s always the possibility of interruption, judgment, or consequence. That keeps part of your nervous system “on.”

What you’re actually craving (and found):

• A private volume of the world

• A place where sound doesn’t travel socially

• A setting where you can regress, experiment, decompress, or just be ridiculous without friction

If you want to recreate this closer to home in the future, the key variables to look for aren’t “nature” or “remote,” but:

• Distance from residences (not roads)

• Sound absorption or isolation (woods, elevation changes, open land)

• Clear ownership or permission (Airbnb, Hipcamp, private land stays)

• A structure you can fully inhabit (RV, tiny cabin, yurt)

This kind of solitude is rare, and it’s healthy. It’s where people reset their sense of self—without mirrors, without echoes, without an audience.

You didn’t just enjoy a trip. You discovered a condition your mind thrives in.