Why is “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” such a commonly used phrase? I know some of the greats use it (I’m looking at you, Kelly Clarkson), but it is inherently false.
What doesn’t kill you rarely makes you stronger. What doesn’t kill you can harm you, hurt you, cut you, bend you, break you, weaken you, destroy you and, sometimes, it can kill you. The problem with the phrase is that it implies that simply because you have survived a situation, you are now a better, stronger person. And that is simply untrue.
Dealing with what didn’t kill you, finding love and support from family and friends when you need it and offering it when you can, using what didn’t kill you to help other people who are going through the same things — those are examples of things that make you stronger. Don’t believe for a second that just because you’re alive you have an automatic contract with life to buck up and be tough; you are allowed to be hurt and to be weak, with the understanding that you can shape your raw situations and feelings into something that is strong.
Just remember that the next time someone says that to you. You don’t have to be something because you lived through something; but being here regardless is still something
Going into something with the intent of not liking it during and after is a very popular pastime for a lot of people. Whether it’s having preconceived, negative opinions and judgements on movies, television shows, books or any other forms of art and entertainment, people just really love to hate things they haven’t seen or don’t watch anymore. (This is the part where over half of the people reading my feed quickly react in their minds, saying, “No, YOU DO.” But for real, you do it, and it’s obnoxious.)
Nowhere in pop culture is it worse than with @nbcsnl. If I had a dollar for how many times in my life I’ve heard people say SNL sucks, or talk about “how much better it used to be,” I would buy muzzles for all of the people who participate in this conversation of futility. Whenever I hear anything along these lines, I always ask: “But do you still watch it?” 99 out of 100 times I get excuses or variations on the word “No.” Which is mind-boggling. Like — how do you know anything about something you don’t know?
Last night’s episode with John Mulaney was outstanding. But this sketch stuck out, not because of how laugh-out-loud funny it was, but how refreshing its topic and tone were. John played a character who accompanies his girlfriend to an all-black wedding. He’s nervous about how everyone is going to react to him, but as the sketch cha-cha’s on, you learn his character not only already knows a lot of the people at the wedding, but he’s a positive part of their lives, as they are his. It’s an inclusive, heart-warming sketch, and one that is apt to get lost among the lunatics who think SNL and its political leanings are harsh or wrong — our president is the lunatic, and if SNL did anything else but put that on display for the world, then our comedians would have clearly lost their way.
What I’m saying is that if you want to have an intellectual, positive conversation about a piece of work, either consume the entire piece of work and have an informed opinion, or don’t be surprised when everyone starts to discount your opinions on everything. You earn your place as a person who respectfully disagrees or opposes. It is not a right; it’s a privilege.
Not in a hyperbolic, overly dramatic way, mind you. It’s just whenever I’ve felt lost and lacking direction, I have always been able to find what I need in the pages of a comic.
Like any other human on this planet, I’ve been through stuff. And like any other human, I have felt alone. The reason that comic book shops mean so much to me is because they represent a community, and that community represents the place that I have always been searching for: the place where I belong.
I am under no pretense that I will ever change or save a life. But I will always be a part of this thing that let me be a part of it, and I will always actively and passionately support that community and the wonderful, life-affirming things you can find inside. All I want is to belong — and I find that in comics, again and again.
So, tomorrow — it’s new comic book day, and MY new comic book will be on the shelves at these brilliant, inclusive, remarkable homes of adventure and invention. So please — visit, explore, find a book and a place where you belong.
I post this because I am seeing a lot of hatred on the internet today, in all of its forms, and I think we need a moment — all of us — to reflect.
Something that I have had a really hard time dealing with lately is seeing posts from devout Christian family members and friends who are also gung-ho Trump supporters, because the messages are so radically different, painfully jarring and truly disheartening. The same people posting about loving all of God’s children, about loving our sisters and brothers and neighbors, are also shouting BUILD THAT WALL at uncomfortable levels of caps lock and I don’t see how they can’t see what I see:
You can’t pick and choose your God’s words as you see fit — how they can benefit you — and still call yourself a devout follower of that God and his teachings. They all apply or none of them apply, because God isn’t man — he will never change and, according to his own laws, he is perfect.
Love thy neighbor is never love thy neighbor, except when. It’s just love.
Do you want to know what makes me different from a typical Trump supporter? Donald Trump is an evil man — he’s corrupt, a proven liar and a whole laundry list of stereotypical bad guy things, but guess what? Even though I will fight what he stands for until the bitter end, I know I have to love him as another human being on this planet. I have to. I can’t wish death upon him, because I know it’s wrong, and it goes against my own beliefs. I am not a God, but I believe in love, because it is the realest thing. I have seen waves upon waves of his supporters who do not feel that same way. Who wish death or harm upon others. Who drown others who are not like them in their hate.
That is not a belief we can stand with. It is not who we are, it is not who our country is and it sure as hell is not God. If you do not believe in love, then you cannot call yourself a Christian. And if you do — if you don’t practice what you preach and what you preach is love — then we have a way bigger mess on our hands than a wall.
No matter how much you progress in life, there will always be people there to remind you of the times you were a piece of crap.
This is okay. Unfortunately, this is how the human brain works for some reason.
I’ve had a few days like that this week, but instead of dwelling on those memories, too, I made myself look in the mirror to remind me of who I am now and how far I’ve come and how I could have let those moments where I was a piece of crap consume and define me, but instead — I didn’t.
If you feel like a piece of crap today — I see you. You are so much more than your bad days and I hope every day you try to prove that person wrong. I hope today is your day.
I’ve been on-record as someone who is agnostic and wary of organized religion, but who is deeply spiritual regardless. It’s a weird juxtaposition, a multiversal worldview, but it works for me.
I preface this story with that statement because I do believe in gifts from gods and messages from the universe. I think that sometimes there are grand designs and there are things that just can’t be coincidental. This story is about that. And it begins with @jimmykimmel.
I am in my fifteenth month of sobriety, and things are going well. But before that I was an inconsistent mess, to put it politely. One night, I was watching Jimmy Kimmel, and he spoke to me. He told me that I had less than a week left to find out if I could qualify for health insurance, and he posted a website for me to check out. I had never had insurance in my adult life, and it was one of the many reasons I was in such disrepair. So I sent in the form and I forgot that I had.
Fast forward a few weeks: I decided to stop drinking, cold turkey, on my own. Two nights after that ingenious decision, I started hallucinating. It was one of the worst nights of my entire life; I imagined (and felt) every kind of horror my body and mind could mutually inflict on me and it broke me down. During a respite from the brutal fight, I had a conversation with God, or the universe at large. I told him that if he would just make this stop, I would stop. I would be done forever. I promised. I would never, ever do this to myself ever again. I pleaded. Please. Just make it stop.
He did not make it stop.
When the sun came up and I thought the battle was won, I was wrong and I was brought to the hospital. They were asking me questions, and when they asked me my name for insurance purposes, before I could explain I didn’t have insurance, they said, “Found you.” I had insurance. I did not know this. Jimmy Kimmel helped me get insurance.
I spent a week in the hospital getting to a more solid state, and the memories of my time there are larger than life and stranger than fiction. For a long time, I wondered why no one answered my prayer that night.
Until I started to figure out they did.
Because I ended up in the hospital, I survived. Statistics will tell you that the key to staying sober is to not die first; this is proven science. Because I ended up in the hospital, I was given resources to truly start to fix me, a spiritual toolbox that I would never have found otherwise. Because I didn’t get away with it this time, because I didn’t do it alone, I knew that it MATTERED.
Everything I asked for got answered in a language I did not understand yet. I used the insurance that I now had to repair the physical things I needed. I use my toolbox for everything else. This is a story to remind you to never stop speaking — because the universe, whether you believe it or not, is always listening.
Every time that you call someone a snowflake or an entitled millenial, or complain about people getting too easily offended and not being tough enough, the people in your life who are going through things see that, and you take yourself off the table as a kind and open person they can feel safe to go to.
People forget that with free speech comes consequences, and if you want to be that jerk who potentially loses someone because you really have something important to say about people today, then go for it. But don’t act confused when people out there are being hurt and hurting themselves when they don’t feel safe enough with the people in their life to ask for help.
Safe place over here. And I know a lot of folks who I feel safe talking to, too. Have a kind day and be nice to each other, Squirrels. I have more than enough room in my life for people who try.
And this dog. I have all of the room for this dog.
Hi. This is about me. I’m the guy in this photo. Not the Joker. The guy behind him working on a dream.
I was born in the 80’s and am a lifelong comics and pop culture fan. I’ve expressed myself artistically in a lot of different ways over the years — I released a trio of albums in my early twenties, I started publishing books in my late twenties with the help of Kickstarter — and I always wanted my journey to lead to comics. Last August, I released my first comic book, The Flying Squirrel, part of a flawed superhero series that will lead to a team book called The Weirdos. In February of this year, I’ll be releasing two more chapters of this series: The Sketch and The Blue-Ringer. I write, draw and produce all of my own work. I went to art school for a minute, but am mostly self-taught. I write books for adults that look like they were drawn by a child.
I’m always getting better, though! My books explore adult themes — alcoholism, depression, mental health, physical illness and more — with a hopeful, realistic and fantastical lens.
This is going to sound stupid, but at first I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to feel again.
When I finally started living in my own body full-time again, getting to know rooms and hallways I’d always seen but mostly avoided, I felt a numbness, a void. Like something had left me. Initially, I thought it was my ability to feel. Thankfully, what left me was something else.
When you’re under the influence of anything, you still experience the world, but under specifically-colored glasses. Everything is tinted by what you consume, and sometimes the shade consumes you. When I took the glasses off, for good, I saw and felt all of the grays, and I think that’s where my fear of never feeling again came from.
I expected a rainbow to burst through a stained glass window like a spiritual prism; I expected a lightning bolt from the cosmos to strike me instantly and show me the entirety of the universe, but instead I felt the vacuum and deep pull of space. I was me, but I was old, but I was new.
The singular color I was used to seeing in everything was the same thing that left me. Color was everywhere, but it all looked gray to me at first. Then — soon enough — every day, I discovered a new color. I learned a new tool, and there was blue. I apologized for something I did in the past, and there was green. I did something positive for another human being, and there was red. Slowly, and sometimes quickly, I was rediscovering the whole spectrum of the world, one day at a time. . There are no requirements for feelings. If you think I should go f— myself, you don’t really have to have a reason why. They are not a thing that need to be earned or substantiated. But to use something to feel something is a cheap way to feel, and I knew that, but I didn’t know that, too. It’s like furniture: if you buy an inexpensive piece and if it isn’t constructed well, it may look good and work for a second, but it will not last. It will fall apart. Whereas, if you invest in and build a good piece of furniture, you’ll not only have something that will last your lifetime and beyond, but you’ll find a feeling that will last, that will stay. I earn my feelings, like I earned my colors back, and they stay with me now. They’re richer and are rooted deeper inside me now.
In the Harry Potter world, the kids go to Hogwarts to learn spells. At first, they learn easy spells, because when you’re a kid the things you’re expected to fix are relatively easy. As you grow older, however, the complexity of the world reveals itself to you; because of this complicated world that adults create, you have to learn better spells, or suffer. I suffered, like I know a lot of us have and do. I had to learn better spells, and over the last year, that’s what I did. And that’s what I plan to do for the rest of my life, and if I can, to teach and cast any spells I know to help others.
So, I’m happy to say that my fear that I would never feel again was for nothing. It was a part of my past self that wouldn’t let go, not right away; like a miserable fish-person who is trying to drag your head back under the water with them. When I came back up, when I started to breathe the fresh, cool air again, that’s when I felt that loss; that dark thing inside of me staying behind, but still under the crystal clear water where I could see it.
That was my first year as a sober adult.
If you have ever been kind to me, thank you. If you have ever helped or tried to help me, thank you. If you have ever made me smile or laugh, thank you. If you have ever listened to me, thank you. If you have ever opened up to me, thank you. If you’ve ever said anything nice about me, thank you.
If you’ve ever said something I needed to hear, thank you. If you’ve ever shared anything with me, thank you. I owe everything I am to you, and I aim to pay that debt with every day I am alive.
When I arrived at work this morning, all the hubbub and hullabaloo was about the missing shovel. No one could find it. I offered my help. “EVERYONE already tried looking for it.” “Don’t even bother. We all looked. You’ll never find it.” “I thought I could find it, too. You won’t.” “Seriously, everyone in the restaurant tried.” Moments later, I emerged, shovel in hand.
There will be moments in your life, big and small, where people may not believe in you or will tell you that you can’t do something. Always try. Never give up.
The Den 