Goodbye Me You

Saying goodbye is as natural as going to the toilet. Like a tadpole whose body eventually sucks in its own tail, we absorb our loss and make the most of it. We are after all made of pure protein.

I’m talking about the farewell to our own youth, for example, how we suddenly look in the mirror one day and feel stupid. I was literally hunting for another person to appear. And the other person was already there, looking back at me — it was the older me saying hi. 

It was the algorithm me waiting for something wildly manufactured, in a new way. I think that people my age and older become insulted when we realise that the whole gamut of artificial intelligence can produce a vision of anything we want, but it cannot improve on the immediate future. Yet.

I went to the tools of my trade, paintbrushes, pencils and such, and I said that’s it. I cannot carry on making motifs with hands that have to be cleaned with turpentine. I am exhausted from wiping with old rags.

The hardest part is saying goodbye to a regular motif that has been like a friend, one that gave comfort without asking any questions.

The other hard part is swearing to never go back on the decision to never go back. And to live with it.