I often feel like my dreams are trying to tell me something. Not ominous messages from the deep unknown or anything so mystical, but simply insights from my subconscious mind. I'll have arguments over religion, lose my job, find out a loved one has died... little, emotional pushes to prepare me for inevitable future events.
And this morning I had one of those dreams, perhaps inspired by this recent sketch. In my dream I was walking through an unfamiliar and lavish apartment, filled with sketchbooks and unfinished paintings. And I understood that these pieces were all mine from many years ago, but all I could think as I looked at them was "I could never paint that." I became very frustrated flipping through half-finished works, each grander and more ambitious than the last. And I knew I could never finish them and I kept thinking, "How did I ever start this?" I woke up depressed. I often say this to myself, that I was a better painter 15 years ago than I am now. That I was a more creative artist. No one agrees with me - I think this is just one of my own particular angsts.
![[Regency London]](http://mleiv.com/mt/files/daily/2008/regency_drawing.jpg)
It was in that lucid moment that I realized that I am constantly sabotaging myself with inhibitions. I never try anything too big or too ambitious. A mental block far below even my conscious thought process just crosses those ideas out and says: "No, that's too hard for me." In drawing my comic I have often found myself forced to draw things because the story calls for it - difficult angles, buildings, trees, cars (*shudder*). And I do it because I have to. And it's painful and I fail a lot. But in the end I do it anyway.
And that's what's different between the artist I am now and the one I was when I was younger and couldn't draw worth crap. I never told myself no. I think that's a pretty damn brilliant insight. Way to go, subconscious. You deserve a cake.
