Viewer Enjoyment Survey

Every so often, I like to get a feeling for the audience I have and where and how all of you are consuming my work - get it, consuming? - and the easiest way to do that is to offer all of you a quick survey. You can access the Google Forms survey here.

This survey is short, and very to the point, asking you a few questions regarding where you watch my work, commissions, my Patreon, and your satisfaction with my work. Take a few moments and fill it out (you'll need to have a Google account in order to take the survey, so keep that in mind if you don't use Gmail/Google Drive/Android). This survey will continue until December 16th, at which time I'll do a final analysis of the results as I prepare for the new year.

Your answers will help guide me to improve myself and the business of producing fun, sexy art for all of you. So please consider participating, and answer honestly. I really appreciate your responses, and hope to see the results soon!

So.

After a very, very long time on Tumblr, I decided I... need something of a refresh. A completely new start. My dashboard is so cluttered with stuff that I can’t really see anything anymore.

My person tumblr has moved to @7oceansofink. My art tumblr has moved to @mukatartblog. Please follow both if you want to keep up with me. Or just follow the art blog if you only want to see art and comics and stuff. It’s up to you!

I feel very unanchored.

Not mentally unanchored. I feel as grounded as I’ve ever been. Maybe more grounded than I’ve ever been. My doctor put me on a dose of Abilify in addition to the anti-depressant he’s had me on for the past few months, and it’s actually helped a ton with not feeling depressed. My mind actually feels clear and alert and able to understand and ‘get’ itself. Which I don’t think it really has ever been able to do.

I feel spiritually unanchored. I suppose, in some way, it’s a bit ridiculous. My spouse would call it a dependency on the Catholicism of my youth.

I guess.

Ritual is such a part of my life. It’s always been such a springboard to spiritual contemplation, a way to clear out the mind and recenter. Having tangible ritual to serve as a worldly fixed point on which to anchor myself has been a big deal for me, even when I wasn’t able to keep up.

I used to be such a religious person as a kid. I was an altar server for years while I went to Catholic school, and I was proud of it. It meant the world to me. I used to do liturgy readings sometimes for student Mass, which we’d have once a month where some of the school kids would serve as the ushers, aid the priest in serving the Eucharist to everyone attending, give the liturgy, etc. Before I was an altar server, I usually did one of the readings, and people would say that when I took the pulpit, it was as though an adult were doing the reading and not a child. I read with that kind of conviction. That kind of power. That kind of faith in the text in front of me.

Words are such very powerful things. I guess that was part of the reason I ended up - in college - so drawn into Islam. Reading the story of Muhammad and Jibril in the cave on Mt. Hira, of those initial five verses of the Qur’an - that declaration to recite from within, recite the words being inscribed into the heart, the angel serving as living pen to the living word of the Supreme Creator of All. Of being so humbled and shaken and afraid but so utterly transformed by the experience. I found an anchor in that, as I once did reading the Liturgy in my old Catholic church as a child.

Ritual, though, and rules, and structures, and such things, though, are for those unable to grapple with the immediacy and ever-presence of the Divine. Or, so I am told. Do this, don’t do that; all of it is nonsense.

So, I cut it all adrift. It’s easier. It’s easier not to have to double up your grocery bill and limit your spouse’s home diet because of what your chosen religion says you can and cannot eat or drink. It’s easier just to give in and have that drink of wine and liquor - it tastes good, anyway. It’s easier not to have a regular prayer service, a place where you can gather with others, a place where you can feel transcended and in the presence of something truly awe-inspiring. You can expereience it, if you want to, if you need to, I suppose, I guess, but you can’t incorporate it into your life. It’s an inconvenience. What if others find out? What if you don’t follow through 100% every day? Then you’re a hypocrite. A dirty, dirty hypocrite who doesn’t live up to your chosen standards and YOURE SHIT YOURE TERRIBLE YOURE A FAKE A FAKE AA FAKE A FAKE FAKFEE FAKFE FAKE FAKE FAKE.

It’s not even that I fully want to go back to Islam, or Catholicism, or onto something else. I don’t know what I want. I want to feel connected to something, spiritually, ritually. I want to be able to enjoy and practice and feel humbled and centered by something bigger than myself and I dont want to feel like an inconvenience or a problem for having this something that I can embrace whole-heartedly.

That’s what I want.

I’m sorry.