Time for a new post. How are we all?

Following my recent discharge from hospital, after my fairly horrific accident, it seems a good time for a little update. I'm currently about 15 months into an estimated 5-year recovery but deemed well enough not to need Hospital checkups and be making a steady recovery. I no longer need crutches or walking sticks, all that I'm really working on now is getting my balance and some of my flexibility back. It's still quite painful and who knows what long term effects will remain. Certainly lots of pain which wasn't there before.

Also, check out these new toys I got for drawing/animation reference. Aren't they sweet!?

This post, I'm gonna talk about what I've learned since my accident. It was probably the hardest time in my life and I'd already had my fair share of trials and tribulations, learning plenty of life-lessons along the way.

The most important thing I learned, is The Value of Friendship.
As cliche and unoriginal as that sounds. I'm very cynical, very sarcastic and neurotic to my core. Most people mistakenly interpret that as me being an asshole or not caring but in reality, I just don't trust anybody. I care deeply. I am passionate about all things. To the point where, I get emotional over stupid things and people being untrue. Like Rick Sanchez: I'm all about the much greater, four-dimensional factual picture; over anyone's feelings, opinions or emotions - none of them last forever. So I don't have many friends. Often through choice. Even fewer true friends, that I can rely on. The creative field is a battleground, at the best of times, and people are always waiting to fuck you over in this game. Look at the great talents being censored and penalised all over the internet right now. Stupid jealous losers hacking talented people and trying to get them shut down. Usually because a difference of opinion or outright lack of substance. So, friends. Who stick by you and help you. Those are the people to really cherish. Unlike the work colleagues I'd thought were my new friends... who abandoned me, didn't visit in their own time or spend any of my recovery with me. Yet, still expected me to work from home for them when I couldn't even dress myself, let alone walk or carry things. Fools. I was ready to give a lot of myself to that company and had any of them been in my situation, I'd have at least visited them every few weeks. Cunts. Now extremely glad I didn't waste my energy with them and correctly assumed that they had all obviously talked shit about me. I wasn't on the agenda since the moment I entered hospital. As if my pain, loneliness and suffering just wasn't quite enough for those shitheads. This contrast really helped me appreciate my true friends. One of my good friends in particular... He would come and help me up the stairs to bed every night, when my leg was swollen up and I couldn't haul my way up there alone - for about 3-4 months! I didn't ask him to. I didn't give him anything at the time. He just did it, coz he's a fuckin br0 and knew the state I was in. Knew how close I came to my demise and was happy I didn't. So make sure you got one of those friends, or better still.. that you are one of those friends. Without it, I wouldn't be making this recovery. Just being there, for someone who feels like they have no one... Is more than enough. They might look like they don't appreciate it or struggle to vocalise their gratitude but put yourself in their place. They have a lot of shit going on under the surface and your presence alone reminds them to carry on. Of course, this can come from your family too but you can't choose your family, so I focused on friends in this case.

Bringing me neatly to point two. Psychological trauma, bordering on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Again, without my best friends and family around... I'd have given up. I wouldn't be making this recovery. I might not even be alive. Even with all that, there were times when I had breakdowns and wanted to guzzle handfuls of painkillers, then never wake up. People are always talking about the importance of mental health and how widespread things like depression are. To a degree, I would say, that's just life. A lot of people have an easy ride through it and the minute they hit hard times, they aren't prepared for it. The hormonal imbalances. The self-loathing, self-depreciation and complete feeling of hopelessness. If you're not prepared or strong enough, that shit will crumble your entire reality. When I hit peak manic depression nearly a decade ago, I literally lost my voice. I became so repressed and reclusive that all my social skills shut down. I didn't even think anything of it and wasn't til looking back five years on, that I realised just how much that damaged me and my entire life. Yet, thanks to that, I was able to pre-empt this trauma and asses it. Almost knowing what to expect. Back in school, I'd dealt with some of this as a young child. I soldiered through and somehow built up throughout my teens. Had the time of my life making shitty Flash cartoons on a crappy Trust drawing tablet, on a shitty PC that barely had a 1Ghz single core processor. Despite all the crap I'd been through and not really knowing what I was doing, I had a great time. Despite people trying to shut me down, bully me and send me viruses every day... Life was great. I used to laugh at people wallowing in their teenage emo depression. Which feels slightly bad, looking back but... That's just it. You can't let this stuff consume you. Fear will consume you. Face your fears. Only you can conquer yourself. Don't let emotions and certainly not the actions of other people defeat you. Yeah. Psychological trauma sucked for a while. It sort of disappeared as the intense pain faded and mobility came back. I still have the occaisional night terror. Surreal existential dreams. Once you learn to embrace these struggles, it's not so bad. That's all you can do. It never goes away but you will look back when you've grown stronger and just wonder why it ever mattered in the first place.

Third lesson.. Money ain't shit.
I shouldn't have to be saying this but we live in an age where people care more about their possessions and material things, than they do for each other. This proverb has been told enough times. It's where you at, not where you been. Money makes the world go round. You can't take it all with you... etc. But fuck! There's more to life than money!! More to life than grinding your ass off in a job for some douchebag, who will use you and take all the credit. That's someone elses dream, not yours. More to life than paying bills. The world doesn't end when your bank account is empty. You don't go to jail, unless you're severely bankrupt. Embrace your freedom. Fuck money off. That fear of going broke is all that's keeping you in your place. You're more than a cog in that machine. The only reason people like me even want money, is so we can actually be included and compete in this scummy capitalist society. I only want money to buy new equipment, get some weed or keep a roof over my head. It's so that our voice can be heard, our opinions shared. Not because we want more money, or more material things. If that was the case, I'd make porn or commit crimes. Easy money right there. I sure as hell wouldn't be trying to make it through life with an honest, creative career. Don't base your life or ambitions on money. If you do, then you already fucked up and are a terrible person. Currency is the bane of humanity and just another way you're letting yourself be controlled. I hate that money has been the only ever thing holding my creativity back for years. It won't buy you freedom, it won't buy you happiness. It'll just buy you more confinement, more responsibility and tighten the vice grip that the government has on your balls. The more of it you've got, the more of it they're gonna take. It's quite literally a false economy, given that a good 90%+ of the worlds money isn't even physical anymore. Do whatever you do for the passion and love, not the reward.

After last years shit-show of politics and conflict... First people saying Brexit would never happen.. Then people saying Trump would never win... Guess what. They both happened. It feels great to be on the winning side for a change but they are empty hollow victories, in the much grander scheme of things. I have some hope. Hope that people are waking up to the constant bullshit and lies we're fed from mainstream media. Hope that people are fed up of our propaganda. Yet I know deep-down it's all fuelled by confusion and rage. Rather than informed and educated decision making. I was lucky to be exposed to all this thought from a young age, being an active user on the internet before smart phones and dawn of the web 2.0 idiot. I've been lucky to see the story from both sides all along and if things carry on the way they're going, that hope will be lost. Future generations won't have this privilege and might as well be tuning into the radio for it's spoon-fed headline brainwashing bullcrap. Watching things like Kim Dotcom's lawsuit taking forever and people facing extradition over plain old data... People forgetting about the Panama Papers leak and Iceland's greedy, corrupt off-shore bankers finally being jailed because of said leak... It fills me with doubt. Doubt that the wrong people are still calling the shots. Doubt that anyone in charge really has the interests of the common citizen close to their heart. Doubt that anything we do makes a fucking difference. Doubt that any of this is sustainable at all. Doubt that anyone really knows what we're up against. We need to be more like Iceland and out protesting by the million. So... As Tom Fulp is always saying... Support NewGrounds. Make this the place for creativity and opinions to be shared. It's the only community that hasn't bent and buckled under the pressure of societies expecations. It's everything, by everyone. It's expecting the unexpected.

Some of the other things I learned in this period included...

• The importance of good posture.
• The importance of fruit (or vegetables, if you're into that).
• The unimportance of sugar.
• Books are still great.
• Building scale models is fun -- and also useful as artist reference.
• Bitches would rather fabricate a bunch of lies and convince themselves it's all truth, than spend their time with me.
• Bitches would rather go behind their fiancés back, destroy a childs future and get with a married man, than date me - an actually single crippled and lonely neckbeard.
• Bitches would rather get engaged to their asshole ex than date me, then immediately regret their short-sighted stupidity, when it collapsed within 3 months. Waste.
• Bitches will be bitches and the bitches do indeed be cray. They also seemingly want me to be full of this angst about them, while I just wanna live a life with no stress and no drama.
• Videogames are a great distraction from extreme pain and severe immobility.
• Weed is second-best to Morphine, as a painkiller. Arguably better, as too much won't kill you.
• Brownies are fun to make and even more fun to eat. 
• Never put anyone on a pedestal because we're all the same.
• Repression and hate are a waste of your very limited energy.
• Love don't cost a thing, invest it wisely and generously.
• Net Neutrality is the utmost important crisis we face. Defend Net Neutrality at all costs.
• Surveillance won't prevent terrorism or crimes, only make the general public more vulnerable.
• We the people hold the power, not "them".
• Disconnect. Get away from the digital world, get outside or away from all this noise somehow.
• Smartphones and technology are dividing us more than any amount of politics.
• Fear is controlling us and forcing us to endorse things like genocide, in foreign lands, to spread western influence.
• All this suffereing and turmoil is because of the banks. Money. Corruption. Currency. Because that's what Power is these days.
• Rockefeller is dead and hopefully Money Culture along with him.

Ok I knew most of them last ones already but they definitely needed reinforcing. Anyway, stay tuned. Working on lots of exciting stuff, as always. This time, things may actually materialise as... All the barriers preventing me before and destroying my morale, are no longer there. Anyone who read all of this... Why? But also thank you.

Peace out bitchez!