This is some vent art from a while back, when I first experienced one of the great shocks of life. Just because you're working, doesn't mean you're making progress in life. I had to commute 50 miles in rush hour each day, resulting in massive wear-and-tear on my car, and the car repairs, coupled with the stress meant that I was loosing more emotionally from the job then I was getting out of it.

I suppose it's little surprise that we eventually parted ways not long after drawing this piece. Ironically enough, much of my suffering in life would have been alleviated if I would have listened to Solomon in Ecclesiastes, both about the job and about life in general. It's almost a bit ironic that I saw him as a role model as a child, and prayed for knowledge in accordance to the sunday school teachings, which presented him as a very happy man, simply because he was very smart. In actuality, Ecclesiastes contradicts this, suggesting that all of a man's hard work, efforts, even his intelligence make him little better then the beasts in the field, and all his work is "vanity" a wasted effort.

It's funny that I went through college, got one of the hardest degrees you can get, then, after getting all of that intelligence, did I finally come to the same conclusion only to find these words staring back at me. Of course, maybe he was a bit defeatist as far as biblical authors go. After all, should he be true, why even both to live? Just for food and drink and sex? I may be deeply jaded, cynical beyond all belief, but that's just a frozen surface over a great ocean of idealism that lies just beneath. So I can't give up that easy, even though these days, I sometimes feel life will push me until I do.