I’m feeling low. The world seems to be falling apart somehow. Climate change, capitalism, terrorism, racism, crime and people’s indifference and ignorance. I don’t understand it. I’ve been so focused in my own problems and inner wounds and I haven’t really been part of the world, until now when I’m expanding my perspective and looking outside myself for the first time in a very long time – but I do miss the comfort of my own little universe. I’m happy and proud to be an artist because I can create magic and alternative worlds, both as a comfort and escape from the real world but also as a reminder of what is part of this world if you change your perception a little bit. I can create meaning to pain, to make it worth it, I can play with paint and human emotions to make people feel something, through their numbness or hopelessness. I can share my human experience and connect with the world through my art. And that is a beautiful thing. Especially in a world where it’s hard to connect, I mean on a deeper level.

And through that connection, something pure and magic is born. My art is nothing without that connection. With my art I am creating meaning to people’s emotions, pain, fear and sorrow, and they create meaning to me and my life with their response and understanding. Magic is not a fantasy but in the realness of things.

I feel sad when I see how disconnected people are, from themselves, each other and the world. And they don’t even notice it. We think we are connected because of social media and the mainstream culture. But it’s just an illusion. The only thing people are connected to is to their own self image and lifestyle. Nothing of true substance or meaning.

The best thing that’s happened to me was to lose everything last year, in the break up, when I became broke and ‘homeless’. It forced me to look deeper into myself and what I wanted from life – and from myself. I discovered that I was disconnected to many things and in many areas in my life, so it was easy to let go of them. Dreams, ideals, fantasies, lifestyles, self images and even some styles and techniques in my art. Losing everything also made me more humble and grateful for the things I do have. And for who I am.

Now I am connected to everything in my life and I don’t waste time on things and people who can’t connect with me or who I can’t connect to in some way. Where there’s a disconnection there is also lack of understanding, empathy, respect and acceptance.

To be disconnected from oneself makes it so much harder to connect with the world and to other people. It’s easy to feel a sense of foreignness to emotions and feelings if we can’t connect with them, and that makes us numb and unresponsive to things and people around us. We become isolated in our beliefs and opinions. Narrow minded and closed off. Indifferent and dispassionate. It’s easy to hate when you are in that state, you hate whatever doesn’t fit your own narrow and tight view on what the world should look like.

I wish this was something that most people understood so they could work through their personal issues and feel more connected and comfortable in themselves and in the world and then act in a more tolerant and empathetic way.

We are all warmblooded, we all have beating hearts, so there is no need to fill our minds with coldness and unnecessary intolerance.