It is 2019. January 1st marks fifteen years in business. Scoreboard: clocking in at over 8000 projects. I am about to turn fifty. My predominant feeling is one of accomplishment. I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot in life. I’ve had my adventures and many profound human experiences.

My other feeling is “what’s the point of that?”

When I saw my father dying, the cancer having spread to his bones, and I was given time alone with him to say goodbye, he grabbed my hand and he was trying to say something, but only his lips moved, like a skeleton burning in desert of agony. I could only thing “what’s the point of this?” Here was a man, admittedly a tragic hero, who had made his mistake but also soared to the heights of recovery and love. In his later years he was absorbed into a different family by his common law wife. They knew him as a different man, adored him. He was a different person. But it didn’t matter in the end. Just… suffering. Now it’s fifteen years later and I realize that his story doesn’t have to be my story. That was then. This is now.

In October 2014 my wife of twenty years and I went down to file our divorce papers. As we left walking back to the studio she was shaking with emotion. I had never seen her like that. Twenty years. “What was the point of that?” And it’s an endless cycle of this same thing.

Even the joys of life are repetitious.

Here are my highlights:
I grew up in Southern Oregon in the eighties, a magic place of forests and books. 1969-1987
I served a Mormon mission in Santiago, Chile. 1990-1992 (left the church in 2014)
I went to Southern Oregon University for six years. 1993-1999
I owned a game shop selling miniatures battles stuff. 1997-2000
I was an elementary school teacher (fourth grade) 1999-2003
I ran a company Blue Table Painting. 2004-2019+
I saw my five children born by two different mothers- 1999, 2001, 2004, 2008, 2016

It feels more like writing a book. What’s the point of writing a book? Maybe I’m on a cosmic reality show– mind-blanked and driving a meat puppet for the entertainment of my intergalactic subscribers.