Some friendships fade quietly. Others end like a door slammed in your chest. I’ve learned to live with both, but I never want to stop loving people.

We talk about dreams as if they belong to the night. As if they live only in sleep, in fragments that vanish when the morning light comes in. But dreams don’t end when we wake up.

I’ve been working almost every day for over a year now. No breaks. No New Year’s Eve, no birthdays, no nothing. Even when I’m “resting,” my brain is running: What’s next? What do I need to post? What painting is unfinished? What WIP to upload? What will make people who support me happier? What deadlines are are coming up?

Art is not a talent or a skill. Art is a human impulse. To draw is to claim space. To paint is to assert feeling. To create is to say: I exist, I notice, I feel. A culture that suppresses personal expression doesn’t do so by accident. It serves a purpose. When people are disconnected from their creative instincts, they are more manageable, more predictable. Creativity breeds unpredictability. It fosters dissent, curiosity, disruption. And that makes it inconvenient.