Chapter 21

At least one single person out there appreciates you.

Someone once told me that even if there's a single person who appreciates my work, I should not stop what I do.

But there's another side to this: some people become demoralized if people don't appreciate their artistic expressions. So the practical advice would be to do the things we love to do for our own sake. Just for the sheer joy of doing it.

I think both these views are okay as long as we don't depend on these to make our inner self happy.

I was friends with a guy on social media who told me that his spirit is lifted only when someone gives a comment of appreciation to any of his artworks. This is a dangerous attitude.

Aark said that our old artworks should be preserved because it may have something that benefits someone now or in the future. I am glad I didn’t delete anything from my old blogs. I now keep them as archives so that my history can be kept as a record for the next generations to learn lessons from them – if there are any.

I don't know why I am still blogging though. I do get so many comments of appreciation from complete strangers. They say they are my fans. And there’re, of course, the followers. I don’t block them until they spam or try to scam me.

Just yesterday a friend said he likes the kind of new ideas I drop out of the blue. May be he read my blogpost about the rights of the centipede and was amused I was a supporter of wildlife rights although support for the protection of the natural environment and conservation of living ecosystems are not new for me because I have been advocating for them during my time as a journalist before becoming a part-time stringer.

Another friend said that he likes my opinions about society and culture.

I honestly don't know where the creative ideas for journalistic pieces and blogposts come from. I once painted a picture of a surfer surfing off the coast of my boyfriend’s island but I don’t know whether the inspiration came from although I could say that the stranger was kind of my muse.

I think human creativity and emotions are mysterious in their origins.

Recently on two consecutive days I passed by Vaan and he gazed at me for longer than necessary. I could tell that there was no hatred in his eyes. I didn't stop to talk to him. He was my past. Our sexual friendship was good while it lasted. But it was in the past. I had moved on.

Ayany one day passed by me on foot. He looked at me for a while but there was no hatred and neither did he stop to converse. He was also my past.

I started following him on his Instagram after he recently won an award in a surfing championship and I found out that he had neither blocked me nor removed me. But neither did he bother to follow my Instagram as a courtesy in return. So, in order not to appear that I was stalking him, I unfollowed him.

This is in contrast to a 22-year-old Ukraine surfer who followed me on his own initiative. I was old enough to be his grandfather so I removed him although I didn’t block him. He is a celebrity and out of the thousands of his followers, I was amused that he came looking for me specifically and followed me and therefore I didn’t remove him again. I guessed I was someone special for him for some reason I didn’t know. But may be after seeing my posts he figured that in another part of my life I did bodyboard which is in fact kind of riding waves. I now give likes and comments to his posts and he is kind and generous to give likes to my comments on his Instagram posts.

In the end, we humans just simply don't know the origin of our creativity which when expressed becomes art and we are helpless and hapless when it comes to controlling our feelings and emotions. May be that is the tragedy of what we call the human condition.