Letter from a “Conversationalist”

I’m sending out the newest edition of The Conversation this weekend. If you are not aware of this resource for Creatives, I’m not going to try and sell you on it. In fact, I’ll do the opposite. To be honest, it’s not for everybody. It’s hard work. If you join up, I’ll ask you to take a journey with the rest of us that I can’t promise will be a painless one. We do a lot of honest, no-bullshit reflection on our careers and on ourselves. Lots of self-evaluation. When you do that kind of work, sometimes you find things out about yourself that you’d rather stay stupid about. That’s sort of what The Conversation is: It’s a big, fat, ugly “obliviousness alleviator”. For some of you, that’s just what you need. For others, in the words of Jules Winnfield, “It’s not quite time yet. Let’s hang back.”

So there. Now that you know all the shitty parts about having The Conversation, let me share a non-shitty story with you (with permission from the author, of course).

Greetings Deane,

I’m writing to you on my iPad from the back of my own car. I know that sounds strange, but I assure you, it’s the best place in the world right now. I’m enjoying the ride, my wife in the front passenger seat, and my daughter – my 18-year old baby girl, that is – driving the car. We are on our way to drop my not-so-baby-girl-anymore off for her second semester at Duke University. The crisp cold Carolina air is whistling through the old rear windows of my ’67 Valiant, and the beauty through the glass is breathtaking.

I am able to stall my work for a few days and take this trip with my family because of the changes I’ve made in my life this last year, inspired totally and completely by your work with The Conversation. I am a freelance writer when I’m not a struggling upstart comic book animator. Just a year ago this month, I was toiling in the technology industry as an electrical engineer. I was there because I went to school to be in that field. Why? Because I was bred to become one, and thus, expected to be one, and I reluctantly obliged because I didn’t know I had a choice. My dad was an engineer, his father was an engineer – it’s just what you do when you are a “Pawson”, and I was no different. My parents literally could not wait until I was old enough to ship off to engineering school. It was a big day in our family, and as I walked down the jetway to board the plane that would take me across the country to college, I remember thinking to myself, “Goddamn. I do not want to do this.”

But, with a sigh of resignation, I went. I got exceptional grades and graduated summa cum laude. Upon graduating, I was awarded a mid-level position in a company that now is now one of the leading Japanese electronics manufacturers, with design firms here on the East Coast. Up until I left it all behind to pursue my dream full-time last year, I was a VP in the company and drawing a high six-figure salary with stock options. I was living what most Americans would consider “the American Dream”.

But underneath all that, I was completely miserable. I was dead inside. Ever since I was a boy, I’d been fascinated by comic books. Comics of all genres, I wasn’t particular. Action comics, superhero comics, dark comics, early graphic novels, and different manga titles that I would get my hands on from various mail-order sources. Growing up, my rags of choice were things created by guys like Curt Swan, Jim Steranko, Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, and of course, anything Stan Lee touched. I started drawing in the second grade, and upon my dad observing me at the breakfast table one day before school, was abruptly told that “art was for wimps” and that I needed to study and get good grades so that I could “make something” of myself some day. This occurred regularly with my father throughout my childhood, and he and I came to loggerheads many times over my desire to be creative and draw characters versus his desire for me to study mathematics and solve sequential formulas. One time in junior high school, I came home from school to all of my art supplies having been cleaned out of my room, snapped in half, and thrown in the trash can outside our house. I remember telling myself that I would pack up a bag that night and run away. Had my young distraught mind been able to think of somewhere I could crash that night, I probably would have done it.

In college, I drew for the local paper and for two Japanese manga comic companies that I hooked up with through friends I made at my university’s art program. Though I never took an art class in college, I made friends with as many art students as I could. They were my pack. They “got” me. We’d hang out, drive cars, and draw. That’s pretty much all we did. (Well, we smoked a little dope, too… but, you know.) I don’t remember a single person in any of my drafting, engineering, or electromagnetics courses, but I still keep in touch with almost all of my close artist pals.

So, art has been in my blood since youth. Unfortunately, I listened to others and followed their vicarious paths in choosing my career, and it led me to a life completely void of anything artistic for too many years. Early last year, a friend of mine who works in video games turned me onto your website and blog. I surfed around and found The Conversation. I was already sold from reading your blog, so I signed up and “took the plunge”, as you say. I don’t know how much feedback you get from people subscribing to that thing, but I don’t mind telling you that it is the best five bucks I spend every month. I’ll be honest with you – it took me a couple of issues before I decided that you weren’t a pompous asshole. But then, once it all clicked into place for me, I realized that the fight I was experiencing was actually an internal one. What was really occurring was that the topics you were tackling in each issue were things that I hated about myself. I was projecting the frustrations I was having about my own empty creative career onto you.

I think I was about three or four issues into the series when I realized, sitting at my desk in a suit and tie at the company I’d been at for almost 18 years, that I was wasting my life and living someone else’s dream – my dad’s. I had never done a single thing with my talents that I had wanted to do when I was young. My God – when I was young, I had so many plans. I had dreams. I had ambitions. And here I was, in the most sterile and non-creative environment one could ever imagine, making stockholders rich while I sat there dreaming out the window and thinking about how things might have been had I never got on that airplane when I was eighteen.

That day, I called my wife and told her I wanted to quit and start drawing again. She laughed at first, but after I explained what I basically just told you, she said, “Honey, I’ve been waiting for this phone call since Sara was born.” The next day, I told my superiors that I was leaving the company. Everyone, including our friends, thought I had lost my mind. My wife, God bless her, has never questioned my decision to do what I love, and despite the difficulty in our financial situation that it has caused a few times in the last ten months, she has never even hinted that I do anything differently. It’s funny – sometimes when I get down and wonder if I’m doing the right thing, she says something like, “Well, if you won’t listen to me, then what do you think Deane would tell you to do?” We both laugh because although you and I have never met, she knows I’m absolutely terrified of you and what you would say to me if I were to tell you I was doubting myself.

After this first year of wondering what we were going to do if I didn’t start getting a few more writing jobs (I have kept cashflow fluid by taking freelance editorial jobs in the comic industry, mostly writing for trade pubs), I just landed my first animation job with a mid-level indie print. I am beside myself with joy, and so is Pam. I’m a grown man and I feel like I just got my first job! I feel like I think I would have if that job I took out of college would have been this one. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened, and it happened because I took a huge risk and followed your advice to “abandon all hope of ever being happy unless you are doing what you love.”

Thank you so much for continuing to invest your time in people like me. We have never met, but I feel like you know me better than my own brothers and sisters do. You understand where my passions come from and why I have the strange drive to play around with shapes, shades and angles until I have created a comic character. You are doing something that nobody else does quite like you do it or quite how you present it, and it’s working wonders for people like me. I’m looking forward to this year and what the next issue of The Conversation will challenge me to do.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Pawson
Boston, Massachusetts

[divider style="thin"]

If you would like to read more about The Conversation, click here. If you have questions about whether it’s for you, click here for a sample issue. If you still don’t know, email me. I’d be more than happy to chat with you about it.

[divider style="top"]

EASTERN CHRONICLE is my new album that is available worldwide on T-ABC Records. You can download it here on the website in any uncompressed format you can think of. You can also get it in AAC format from iTunes, on MP3 from Amazon.com and in various formats on just about every digital carrier that is out there including Spotify and MOG. If a physical copy is more your speed, the CD is available at retailers throughout Asia and North America.