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We're all a bit of a mystery. Curious little puzzle pieces of wants and needs, desires and dreams. Different enough to have distinct ambition, similar enough to know the same joys and pain. But each of us is significant in some way even if we begin to forget that with the years.

I think we all grow forgetful of a lot of things. Forgetful of our lore, forgetful of our pasts. Our triumphs, but not our failures. I think we grow forgetful that we were completely different people, that we were children and still are in some ways.

I don't know when I began to grow distanced from the things that made me smile. When the idea of doing things for myself became nothing but selfish and wasteful, and the thought of collaboration took a back seat to competition. I just..did what I was told, you know...? And when I finally stopped doing that, I felt free and abandoned by the people who made my world.

When my teachers reprimanded me for drawing in class it was because I couldn't make a career out of art. When my mother and father urged me to go into real estate, it was because they didn't want me to " become a starving artist ". The first thing most people ask me these days when they see my drawings is " You get paid for that? "

....These days I think things like you and me are more a puzzle piece than ever. Unsure of what we feel is really ourselves, or what everyone else has told us. It's...frightening... I just...I wonder if any of these people in my life no matter how little or long our time together was...I wonder if any of them ever once understood me when I said " I just want to make art. "

Have you ever wanted to just...do that? To just create? To just explore your heart, travel your mind and express yourself? What I wouldn't give....what I wouldn't give to see us as a people ask the question more often " What inspires you? "

Doesn't sound so productive does it..?