Falling Frogs
(From my Book: Art & Synchronicity as Daytime Dreams)

Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the gonzo fever dream that hit me like a slap while I was painting Falling Frogs—those plummeting frogs a metaphor for hubris’ inevitable crash. I figured that raw slice of the book must’ve been channeling Armstrong or maybe Buzz Aldrin, those lunar conquerors whose boot prints scarred the moon but whose egos bloated like overripe fruit back on Earth. In the hazy afterglow of their triumph, whichever astronaut it was touched down not as some wide-eyed pilgrim humbled by the cosmos’ vast indifference, but as a strutting colossus, inflated with a pride so toxic it warped heroes into grotesque parodies of themselves. Fresh from the star-strewn void where galaxies had seemingly knelt at his feet, he walked into the grimy place of everyday life—a roadside diner amid the din of clattering plates and small talk—demanding the world drop to its knees in perpetual adoration. And there, in that unassuming haze, a starry-eyed boy walked up, clutching a pen, begging for a sliver of eternity: an autograph from the man who’d walked on the moon itself. But oh, the savage blow that fate delivered—the boy, maybe sniffing out the rot of arrogance lurking beneath fame, shredded that sacred scrawl to confetti right in the astronaut’s smug face, letting the bits flutter down like the ashes of a burned-out space capsule. It was a brutal act etched in the air: gravity doesn’t just yank at flesh and bone; it claws at swollen heads too, dragging the mightiest back into the mud, where glory fizzles into the cold sting of oblivion.
 
Yet, lurking in the mind of Thompson himself—the writer who immortalized these plummets—the real gut-punch of living boiled down to that audacious blueprint for a never-ending skyward frenzy, perched high in the throbbing guts of a neon-drenched Circus-Circus, where trapeze artists mocked the ground’s pull around the clock. The owner of that amazing casino who created the relentless whirl of swings and somersaults had cracked open life’s delirious secret: the surge of ceaseless propulsion where you hover forever untouchable, free from the deadweight drag of the ground below. But Thompson, squinting through the swirling fog of his own hallucinogenic escapades, pierced the veil to the merciless kernel—it was all a mirage, unsustainable as a junkie’s peak. No matter the poetry of the vault or the electric jolt of the snag, that safety net yawned eternally beneath, and the tumble was baked in, a nosedive straight into the gnawing “Fear” that dogs every climb, a cosmic whisper that the loftiest summits are nothing but setups for a fall, where arrogance shatters and the raw truth seizes what’s owed.
 
But if you look closer, the truth is simple: no person can reach such great heights—whether walking on the moon or climbing the ladder in some important quest—without the universe demanding a price. It’s a real-world reminder that destroys the illusion of perfect success. Just as a master potter’s vase or a perfect painter’s canvas cannot stay flawless forever and will eventually crack under time or pride, the soul also breaks when pride grows from touching something divine here on earth. I cannot explain exactly why this happens, but it comes from that old problem—pride, the hidden force that turns every triumph into a trapdoor. Look at Jacob, who stretched out his arms in desperate prayer and finally received an answer that left him sprawled on the ground, his hip twisted and shattered, so he limped for the rest of his days as a living lesson in humility. And now the same lesson came back to me personally, hitting me in my own body and mistakes, showing me that every rise comes with a fall and that pride’s rewards never last. I had already earned one PhD, creating something perfect only to see it damaged the very next day by something unexpected; now I was on the edge of earning another, bracing for the same shadow that always follows such successes.