You Are Who You Know

Book no. 8 Marcus Aurelius

My Interpretation of Meditations Book One by the Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius.

A self published zine by Mike Kerr
Release Date TBA

“Who am I?” is a question that runs through all my zines. Marcus Aurelius has a good answer to this question in his first book – you are who you know. And by listing how people have influenced me, as Marcus Aurelius did, I have a greater appreciation of where I am coming from.

The idea for this zine came from somewhere else as well. I have been filling sketchbook pages with abstracted environments that I call mindscapes. They are fun, relatively mindless, and meditative to draw. And I wondered if I could tell a story through these introspective places. However writing stories takes forever! My wife had a book by Marcus Aurelius kicking around so I figured why not illustrate it? And it worked out better than I imagined.

Mindscapes

Improbable and impossible landscapes for encouraging contemplation.

Somewhere to explore the visual juxtaposition of places and ideas.

It also taught me something about my art. When he wasn’t doing the Emperor thing, Marcus Aurelius was also known as a Stoic philosopher. And I recognize a little of myself and my work in Stoic philosophy. I’ve never been enthusiastic about expressing emotions directly. From a social and creative perspective this can be limiting. We all appreciate enthusiasm, maybe even expect it. And while I am very enthusiastic about creativity – mine and others. I am just not comfortable showing it.

As an example, I wanted to get into to kids book publishing. However I had trouble because I was unable to make my work emotional or social enough for a literary market that emphasizes social stories and emotional storytelling. This realization helped me understand what my art is, and what it is not.

Expectation is a killer of creativity. And by personalizing my expectations, any failure has ultimately inspired progress.