This was originally a series of posts on Bluesky, but I decided to post this here also.

I finally got a chance to watch Look Back and it really got me thinking...

Why did I start drawing?

Why did I stop drawing?

Why am I afraid of drawing again?

I went back and looked through an old folder of my artwork from grade school I had hidden away and all the answers came to me...

So, why did I start drawing? I was a very shy kid growing up. I didn't understand how to socialize like other kids did, so I mostly kept to myself. A part of me still wanted to make friends somehow, so I started drawing things that I liked and showing other kids. This worked out pretty well. I had a lot of fun drawing silly comics and messing around with my friends. And I kept making friends like this up until my senior year of high school. By that time, talking to people had become much easier, so I didn't need to express myself as much through art anymore. I still enjoyed it, though. By the time I graduated, I decided that I would do art seriously as a career. After some time, I started attending college for a degree in visual communications.

Why did I stop drawing, then? Everything was going smoothly. I was on a path to my dream job. What happened?

Fast forward to around the start of my second year of college. I was very determined to become a professional artist. I would spend hours each day doing nothing but coursework and drawing.

One day, my graphics design professor tells me about a paid internship with a local print shop that I qualify for. As someone who wanted to make art for a living, I jumped on the opportunity without hesitation. To think I'd be making money from the things I create and I hadn't even finished my degree yet. It was a dream come true, or so I thought...

Long story short, things got really busy at the shop. It got to a point where I had to choose between staying in school or working as an artist full time. Of course I chose the latter since it was what I wanted to do. I failed to realize that in doing so I would slowly begin to kill a dear part of myself.

I worked myself to the bone, putting everything I had into every design I worked on. It was exhausting, but I believed that it was worth it in order to get better and make more money later down the line. All that effort I put in didn't translate as well as I thought it would, though. Not only that, but I had lost sight of why I had started doing all of this in the first place. By the time I realized it, though, the passion I had for making art had already dried up. I didn't see it as a fun pass time anymore and any personal projects I started would never see completion.

So I gave up right then and there. I even went as far as changing my role at the shop from designer to screen printer just so I'd never have to go through the process of creating something I did not enjoy myself. Things didn't get better for me, though.

I pivoted to so many different things. Nothing seemed to fill that same void, but I couldn't bring myself to go back to drawing. Especially since it had been such a long time since I put a pen to paper, it felt like it'd be a wasted effort. I'd always look back and think "I'll never be as good as I was or would've been if I kept going, so why bother?"

Seeing Fujino pick her pen back up after everything hit me like a truck. It made me realize that all the negative thoughts I had about myself or my art didn't really matter. I was put into this world to do one thing and nothing else.

And that is to tell stories through art, whether it be good or bad.

I will no longer give up on myself.

I will be the person that I was meant to be.

I will set an example for others to do the same.

Thank you, Mr Fujimoto.