AMERICAN ARTIST

I believe that American Gods by Neil Gaiman is one of the greatest novels ever written. My parasocial relationship with the author is strained at best and I've struggled with separating the art from the artist since learning of the accusations against him. In the end, I've decided not to give him another dollar of mine. He can live without it. But Odin's momologue towards the end of American Gods is still one of my favorite book excerpts and I have quoted it many times throughout my life. So I rewrote it. American Artist by Samantha A. I can reach for things that are possible and I can reach for what is impossible and I can reach for things which nobody knows if it’s possible or not. 

I can be an author and a crafter and a business owner and a painter and a candlestick maker. 

I believe you can do anything, that talent is teachable, that late stage capitalism wants you to believe that it’s better if you buy it while really all it does is eat away at your soul little by little.

I believe that racism is trash and I believe that racism is actually a creation of the uber rich to keep the poor fighting amongst ourselves so we don’t pay attention to what’s really going on. 

I believe that being a witch isn’t a trend but a siren song calling us home and that Christians don’t actually know what Christianity is.

I believe in boycotting AI and I believe that it’s not going to make a difference in the end.

I believe the patriarchy will fall when all the old men are dead, that the marriage and birth rates will drop, and that it’s good for our future if it does.

I believe that we’ve gotten so accustomed to virtue signaling that it’s all just white noise and that of all the things tearing us apart this one is the easiest to fix. 

I believe that this summer’s record breaking heat waves are a parallel to the deaths of Hayden Panettiere, Dolly Parton, and Tim Curry, that crystals are a symptom of greed, and that in a past life I was a trans man in the holocaust. 

I believe that history repeats itself. I believe I really was seeing magic as a child, that hummingbirds are physically impossible, that creativity is a gift and a skill, that somewhere is a version of you that is everything you could ever be (though sometimes that version is you), and that the belief of Gods is older than the Gods themselves.

I believe in an infinite Earth, in a dying Earth, in an Earth that’s biding her time until the humans are gone and she can rebuild better than before.

I believe there are no other planets with life and we’re really, actually alone in the universe. I believe that anyone who says art doesn’t have to be political just hasn’t been paying attention. I believe that anyone who believes they aren’t creative will believe they aren’t smart, either.

I believe modern art is superior and that it’s useless if we don’t master classical art as well.

I believe in a person’s right to immigrate, a country’s right to say no, that while all people deserve to be safe there’s nothing wrong with a strict immigration policy if you can trust the current government implicitly, and that only an idiot could trust the current government.

I believe art is a necessity, art is a luxury, art is a series of opposites fighting to exist together and that you might as well pick up that paintbrush and try.