I drew this 10 years ago today. Still true. Commentary is new.
One of the most oft repeated public events in our world today is the airing of a person’s ‘sins’ and the response from that exposed ‘sinner’. Yes, I am using the word ‘sinner’ on purpose, because it fits how people look at the infraction. We aren’t seeing it as slight breaking of some rule, like jay walking, we are seeing a perceived moral failure.
You name the person; Trump, Weinstein, Huffman, and more and there is harsh judgment not only for the infraction but for the public apology for the infraction. Why is that?
Because it’s talk vs action. They acted immorally but their immediate response is to talk morally. We inherently don’t like that. That is why we crave punishment. We want the immoral act to be balanced by another act, not by words. Nice words are not enough.
What we want is to see the person who dug the hole with his or her actions to dig out of the hole with actions as well. That is why redemption takes time and why most people who find themselves in a deep hole they created should say whatever mea culpa they need to say, knowing it is insufficient, and then shut up and start acting to get out of the hole.
The action might be incarceration, it might be charity, it might be exile, who knows. None of that matters though if the most critical action, the action that has to be there, isn’t implemented, and that is self-awareness. The sinner has to recognize they have sinned, they have to decide to take action to change their thinking and their behavior and then they have to take that action and never stop.
And what is our obligation in all this? I believe we err when our judgment is so harsh that we don’t allow that they actually may have dug themselves out of the hole with actions, not words, and that they deserve to be given a second (or third or fourth) chance. It doesn’t mean they get to be back in their same position of power over others, it simply means we allow that they have done the work and deserve a chance to do or be something better than they were.
Spiralita was a happy girl, in spite of her questions. As a matter of fact, it was her questions that gave herself that happy identity. She was known throughout the land as the ‘Question Girl’. Some made fun of her because of all the questions she asked and some admired her for always being so curious about the world.
But she paid no attention to those people since she didn’t ask her questions because or for them. She asked them because she wanted to know answers. Not THE answer, just answers. Answers were the answer to everything.
The Answer is the Answer
And because she was always asking questions she was always getting answers. She didn’t always believe the answers because she knew answers could be wrong. But she believed even in getting wrong answers. Wrong answers she understood were the only thing that led to right answers because they were the reason for asking more questions and questions were essential to answers. You can’t have one without the other.
The Hill of Life
What made her happy about all this was she knew that getting answers led to progress up the Hill of Life. Getting up any hill wasn’t easy but getting up the Hill of Life was especially hard because it was very steep and very rocky. It was uneven and sometimes dangerous. It could be beautiful and wonderful but not always. Each sharp, giant boulder and each dark, swampy part was overcome by finding the answer to a question. She knew if she practiced asking questions and finding answers when the path wasn’t too hard she would be better at it when she reached these scary parts.
The Solo Climb
And it worked. She was successful in getting to the top of the Hill of Life and just as importantly, she was happy doing it. She felt bad for some of her friends who stumbled and fell back down the hill along the way, even though she tried to help them. She was happy though for her other friends who also figured out how to get to the top. But she knew, in the end, that each person had to climb the hill by themselves.
I posted this drawing 10 years ago today. Still true. I did the drawing in 2002, and another one just like it, and put them in my daughters’ lunches to bring to school.
I love this quote. It reminds me of a road trip. Destiny is the driver and Fate is the friend in the passenger seat saying ‘turn here, go straight, take the on ramp, take the back road…
‘The woman on the Staten Island Ferry sleeping but aware I am drawing her and hoping she looks pretty.’
I did this drawing in 2003 while on my way to visit a girlfriend’s family on Staten Island, New York City. We were dating in Tulsa at the time and both happened to be in NYC at the same time while visiting our respective families. I hopped the ferry to SI to meet up with her and meet her family for the first time. It as a fun visit and very insightful to see where she was from.
Our relationship didn’t last for too much longer after that for the usual reasons, just basic incompatibility, nothing crazy or major. A few months after this trip I started dating Linda, who would eventually become my wife.
I drew the original drawing in 2003. The next time I rode the ferry was in 2018 to the start of the New York City Marathon. That sparked my memory and a few months later I searched out this and a few other drawings from that trip. In 2019 I added the color to this one.
