On Comics and Breaking The Monotony of Every day life with a little Childishness

Good evening! hopefully you have all survived the massive heat waves! I also have survived, and have something kinda fun to talk about with you all. So strap in and lets get into it!

As some of you may be aware, I have a day job. Gotta buy the art supplies somehow. Anyway, recently, I began purchasing some comics from artists whose work i enjoy.

This got me thinking: what sort of media do other people consume? do other people enjoy comics? The answer to this is: of course they do! Everyone needs a hobby, and there are lots of people who consume comic book media in their adult years.

I also feel like it's important to remember that there is nothing wrong with this!

With this in mind, I began asking my coworkers, "Do you like Marvel or Dc?" I figured that was an easy enough way to put it, especially since I tend to be more than a little extra with my phrasing when I ask about stuff.

This continued over the course of a couple weeks as I asked people across the different shifts, and trends began to emerge. Most of them either had a response ready or they would bristle initially and say, "i don't read that stuff," so I began asking them if they had a favorite or preference when they were kids.

Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I re-framed the question, they immediately had a response. They seemed a little shocked both at the fact that I had asked such a personal question, and that they had a response ready to go! This got me thinking about how humans by default tend to decide that at some point, they are not supposed to enjoy things anymore. Or rather, that they are supposed to enjoy different things than they did as a kid.

Realistically, there is a pretty good chance that you have experienced something similar at some point, a sort of, "I'm a grown up now, so I have too much to worry about, to be wasting time or energy on childish things!". What this does is it causes us, in some cases, to take the things we enjoyed as a kid and we pack them away to make space for things like: to do lists, bills, work stress, or an endless beige tide of information that we really don't care too much about, but still have to deal with!

These things clutter up the brain space, making us begin to look at things we used to enjoy and going, "Oh whats the point anyway?". We find excuses to not do things. We decide, " I don't have time to devote to it right now, there's too much other stuff to do." We dump time into other things, big time sinks like video games, or doom-scrolling on apps on our phones, and suddenly we have lost another evening to the stress. We go to bed, super late, miserable because our brain's still exhausted. The next morning we wake, way too early usually, ready to grind away a little more of our personality on the incessant grindstone that is "work," and the cycle repeats again.

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To get back to my point, we just don't realize that this happens, or we realize it, but don't know what to do about it. We make excuses, and say "Oh there is just not enough time," or "Yeah I will do that later." This is my message to you:

It does not matter what the excuse is.

**

You need to make time.**

It's not sustainable for anyone to continue to exist in a stressed state, no matter how stubborn you might be. Your brain needs rest, and part of that is doing things that bring you joy-the simpler the better. Read a book; go outside and dance in the rain; see a movie; go out to the park and just watch the world pass by for a moment.

Maybe even... pick up a sketchbook, and start drawing.

You might surprise yourself at what happens when you give your mind a break for a little while. Do it regularly, and you might find that your mental health starts to improve a little!

Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you all and urge you: make time for yourself to open the closet, and maybe take out that childhood thing that brought you joy, and remember some simpler times.