Alright! Not to be too dramatic or anything. Not trying to make this a sob story or sound like I'm going off the deep end, but do feel like I should say this, as bottling it up has only made my problems worse.

As the old saying goes, "you are your biggest critic," which I have let control me for the past 8-9 years. I like my art and what I've made, but that's starting to kinda rot away. When it comes to animation, I've wanted to be good at it for so long. I've wanted to make things like all the other big-name guys out there. I'm pretty sure some would say I'm just about, if not already there! Well. That's where the title comes into play.

It's gotten harder and harder for me to find a reason to keep doing it. You see. I rarely if ever get inspired by other people. In fact, I just get upset. When I see someone more popular/talented than me, I don't go "Wow! That was incredible! I wanna do something like that!", I go "Wow! That was incredible! Too bad I can't ever do something like that. Might as well not even try." A crazy way to think, I know.

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll have noticed I don't follow anyone despite being on there for 4 years. Outside of the fact that the Twitter landscape is a cesspool, lol, that's pretty much the main reason. Because I don't wanna see their success and their achievements. I can see the most breathtaking piece of artwork, but then see it has 2.1k retweets and likes on Twitter, or has like 2000 likes on e6, then have any joy I had snapped away in an instant and pretend I never saw it.

Speaking of e6... I dunno if I should really say this, as I don't wanna cause any internet drama xd. But I have over 160 things blacklisted. 80% of that is other artists and popular oc's for the affirmation reasons above. No, I will not be naming them. 1 million% not doing that lol. But what kinda way is that to live, ya know? There's so much shit over the years I've never seen that could've opened up new ways for me to do and create things. But I've let my envy and hate cloud my judgement and have shut myself off from any interactions (sorry if that sounded cringe x)). This is also why I don't have a fav artist(s). Nobody has elicited a feeling like that outta me in years. At best, it's just "Oh, X made something. Cool", then move on

Not to say I don't have any good buds around. Plenty that I'm close to and could call my friend! However, even them. If one of them says: "You're one of my fav artist," I just have a hard time believing them. I have a hard time believing anyone who says that. I think "...How/why? There's way better people than me. There's no way you put me up there with them."

All that yapping was to say that because of this terrible train of thought, I've slowly found it harder and harder to wanna try and get good. I've literally thought that no matter how much I practice, I'll never be as good, or talented, or successful as X, Y, or Z. I've actually somewhat just thought about quitting cause I just go "...What's the point of evening trying then?" Luckily, I haven't, but man. It creeps up more often than not now.

I hate feeling and thinking like this. I hate disliking others for the sole dumbass reason that "They're better than me", I hate sitting here thinking of something that would be cool to make, but thinking it's not gonna gain much traction, I hate creating something, see how well it goes and going "Oh but if X, Y, or Z made it it'd take off" and being put off from doing anything else. I used to do a ton of fan art back then. But that's really died off. My thought process being "They already get enough, I'm not adding to that"/"What's in it for me? Why would I do something for them if I know they'll never do anything for me?"

The reason I've only ever opened like this to literally only 1 other person is because... this is stupid, heh. I completely agree this is really dumb and I really just feel like I'm whining and complaining about nothing. How dare I, right? I know for a fact if I saw some like [insert famous name here] saying the shit I said, I would go "How?! How could you possible feel like this!? Have you seen what you made, and you wanna give up because "it's not as good as [other famous name]?? That's insane!"

I don't how to finish this off. This is probably all disorganized n' stuff and a slog to read, but it's how I feel. Sorry about that lol

TL;DR Envy is a poison and it's ruinig my passion for art/animation. I dunno how to fix it