The day recedes and the solar tide goes out to sea, leaving behind an empty, jet black shore. 'If only thoughts could come without effort!' The thought trespasses, my lament of the lazy.

In this lazy pitch dark I come across something on the shore, a familiar acquaintance: the notion that I wish I had done better in life. Now because I weary, little else to write on comes to mind and it is this familiar yet untrodden avenue I must finally attempt to pursue, simultaneously too sleepy to do it justice.

For years I've held my desires close to my chest, possessed by the idea that to reveal oneself is invite ruin upon those things revealed. No, I thought, the private and quiet, that is where the mind alights and strides are taken! I wanted to protect my joys and sparks of passion from the weary treadmill of life. In these latter-days the stance seems meaningless, perhaps because both the fragility and ruggedness of dreams has become somewhat clearer.

That was a digression, I suppose, buoyed by mental faculties which desire to go into sleep right now. Years ago my mind used to flow like quicksilver, or that's how I remember it. Thoughts would come effortlessly, ideas make manifold links instantly and the world took on a greater quality. It was no delusion, either: once, earlier this year, I caught a glimpse of that great state when I was walking and observed a bird flying. Reality shifted as I watched the bird, suddenly words and thoughts flowing like an undammed river. The year before, too, the mental state came to me when I was painting a fence...those are the two times I remember. For some years, reaching this state of great mental capability has been my life's true goal. I've struggled desperately, hoped desperately to achieve it. Many times I'd turn up false positives, thinking I had achieved it only to become mentally muddled and realize I hadn't. But two years ago, when the lightning shot through the sky once more, I remembered what it was like. The world was...right. It wasn't a matter of how I could work with ideas, or process input: it was like existence itself changed.

Perhaps this mental state is a strange psychological fabrication that has me wholly ensnared...yet I vividly remember! So goes my protest. Admittedly, long ago my mind probably never flowed like quicksilver on a daily basis, but it certainly did more often than now. I remember years ago in high school, end of middle school, thinking on this same phenomenon. 'Perhaps hard work might draw it out.' That is my hopeful musing.

Might drawing or animation serve that end, too? Perhaps my dream is misplaced in animation: I find myself thinking that to become an animator for all my life, to keep on this course I chart would be to live in my shadow for the rest of my days. It would be pathetic and now another old longing comes to mind. I want to save the world. If only I had done better.

There's an understanding of the face I'm missing. Pouring more energy into drawing, at an earlier hour maybe, for a longer period of time would be better.