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Leap of Faith - What will 2019 bring?
7 years ago
General
[ General information ] ♞ [ Commission info ] ♞ [ Open slots and commission status ] ♞ [ About me ] First of all, happy new year to all of you!
So 2018 id over. For me, new Year is always an important spiritual milestone. The end of the year is time for reflection on my life, and it concludes in a statement of what the next year's goal, or spirit will be. I don't make resolutions, I chose directions.
The aim and motto of 2019 will be: Returning to my true self.
What does this mean? I could write pages about it but I'll try to put it as short as I can: I'll turn 33 this year. Most of my life was spent in poverty, depression and hopelessness, and over the last 15+ years I've slowly lost myself. I've lost the feel of being alive, the sense of who I am and where my place is in the big picture. Art helped me beginning a journey of reclaiming what I've lost but the real journey will only begin now.
For decades life feels like a dream, all hazy and unreal, with the real me sleeping deep inside. Probably the only time I felt awake and alive again was when in 2011 I boarded an airplane to New Delhi, with 50 days before my return flight, maybe about $200-250 cash, no plans, no reservations just an old printed out map with a tiny village marked deep inside the Himalayas in the region of Ladakh which used to be in the western parts of the old Tibetan Empire. Moreover, I was planning to somehow get there via trekking through the mountains, with zero high altitude experience and zero appropriate gear.
It was a leap of faith. And a bold one at that.
People called me many things: crazy, irresponsible, delusional. They told me the money won't even be enough for 10 days let alone 50. They told me I won't be able to get to Ladakh and back with barely any money and no planning whatsoever. They told me there is no way I can make it. One person even made a bet with me that if I make it he pays me some money because there is no way I can pull this off.
But I did.
And when I was crossing the pass of Shingo La, at an altitude of 5100 meters (16,700 ft), about to walk down on a glacier in my worn $5 Chinese-made hoodie and military surplus boots, watching the rain clouds gather above me, I felt something special:
I was free.
At that moment I felt, that if I don't make it, if I die here now, caught in the ice cold rain on the glacier with no waterproof clothes and freeze, like so many do every year who try to crosse the mountains without proper gear, I'll die without regrets. I'll die without fear.
This is me, at Shingo La: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22626598/
On that day I felt perfect freedom and peace. And one day I'll go back there again, because a part of me stay up there in the mountains, calling me. But for now, I have other challenges to face. Other leaps of faith to make.
The leap of faith before me now may not be as dramatic as the the one I just told you about, but is just as significant. It is time to stop dwelling on my mistakes and stalling in a never ending circle of "I'm not ready to jump yet". It is time I finally reclaimed my life. And this is my goal for 2019.
As for you, my friends and followers, this will mean new directions in my art, releasing an updated price sheet and terms soon, as well as other steps that I'll talk about more when it's time. Things will change. Things will have to change. And I would like to hereby thank you for your continued support, and do my best to create art that will lift your spirits and make you happy. After all, even though I'm trying to make a living selling art, my main motivation has always been and will always be to give people something through my art. To do my small contribution to trying to make the world a better place, one painting at a time.
Thank you.
So 2018 id over. For me, new Year is always an important spiritual milestone. The end of the year is time for reflection on my life, and it concludes in a statement of what the next year's goal, or spirit will be. I don't make resolutions, I chose directions.
The aim and motto of 2019 will be: Returning to my true self.
What does this mean? I could write pages about it but I'll try to put it as short as I can: I'll turn 33 this year. Most of my life was spent in poverty, depression and hopelessness, and over the last 15+ years I've slowly lost myself. I've lost the feel of being alive, the sense of who I am and where my place is in the big picture. Art helped me beginning a journey of reclaiming what I've lost but the real journey will only begin now.
For decades life feels like a dream, all hazy and unreal, with the real me sleeping deep inside. Probably the only time I felt awake and alive again was when in 2011 I boarded an airplane to New Delhi, with 50 days before my return flight, maybe about $200-250 cash, no plans, no reservations just an old printed out map with a tiny village marked deep inside the Himalayas in the region of Ladakh which used to be in the western parts of the old Tibetan Empire. Moreover, I was planning to somehow get there via trekking through the mountains, with zero high altitude experience and zero appropriate gear.
It was a leap of faith. And a bold one at that.
People called me many things: crazy, irresponsible, delusional. They told me the money won't even be enough for 10 days let alone 50. They told me I won't be able to get to Ladakh and back with barely any money and no planning whatsoever. They told me there is no way I can make it. One person even made a bet with me that if I make it he pays me some money because there is no way I can pull this off.
But I did.
And when I was crossing the pass of Shingo La, at an altitude of 5100 meters (16,700 ft), about to walk down on a glacier in my worn $5 Chinese-made hoodie and military surplus boots, watching the rain clouds gather above me, I felt something special:
I was free.
At that moment I felt, that if I don't make it, if I die here now, caught in the ice cold rain on the glacier with no waterproof clothes and freeze, like so many do every year who try to crosse the mountains without proper gear, I'll die without regrets. I'll die without fear.
This is me, at Shingo La: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22626598/
On that day I felt perfect freedom and peace. And one day I'll go back there again, because a part of me stay up there in the mountains, calling me. But for now, I have other challenges to face. Other leaps of faith to make.
The leap of faith before me now may not be as dramatic as the the one I just told you about, but is just as significant. It is time to stop dwelling on my mistakes and stalling in a never ending circle of "I'm not ready to jump yet". It is time I finally reclaimed my life. And this is my goal for 2019.
As for you, my friends and followers, this will mean new directions in my art, releasing an updated price sheet and terms soon, as well as other steps that I'll talk about more when it's time. Things will change. Things will have to change. And I would like to hereby thank you for your continued support, and do my best to create art that will lift your spirits and make you happy. After all, even though I'm trying to make a living selling art, my main motivation has always been and will always be to give people something through my art. To do my small contribution to trying to make the world a better place, one painting at a time.
Thank you.
Blessings Kriss
I grew up upper middle class until my Dad lost his job and I spend high school and early jr college in poverty. I would work up to a new job to have something unforeseen happen where I lost everything and became homeless living on the street. I work out of that and just before I can get to being in a good job, I lose everything again to some unforeseen problem, I lose everything an am homeless again living on the street.
It has happened so many times I'll be 64 this next year when the people I graduated High School with will retire from their 6 figure income jobs where they have spent a lifetime cheating and stealing from other people to get ahead.
I'm trying again, my astrology said I would not be able to get out of poverty until I was old. Those unforeseen things would happen to kick me in the teeth and threw me into the gutter after losing everything. I tried to not have it made right, so I keep trying.
I wish you well in your art I hope you don't have to wait another 30 years like I have to make it.
I hope to finally make money off of my art and writing now that I'm old. Ironically my Astrology has been right so far, One more time working up the ladder.
I think you are a better artist than I am, your artwork seems to come easily out of you into what you wanted it to be. Good luck in the new year, go climb a mountain.
Art is not easy for me though, I've spent spent lots of time and energy learning and practicing, lot's of failing and trying again and so on.
V.