Skinner

Skinner closes by advising listeners to protect their spirit from things they cannot control, since worrying does not change outcomes.

“worrying about stuff doesn't change the outcome of anything. It just makes you feel sad and weird inside”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:42:20

Skinner argues that being authentic, afraid and not knowing is how the world gets healed because people stop pretending.

“it's the way in which I feel like the world does get healed because nobody's like when that happens, people aren't pretending”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 22:15

Skinner describes two creative portals, avoiding the uncomfortable writing and world-building work in favor of the drawing he is confident in.

“One is the easy one where I'm comfortable and I know exactly what I'm doing. And I usually use this one to avoid the other one, which is the uncomfortable portal”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 20:37

Skinner observes that people only get excited about his being an artist once they learn he earns money from it.

“I only see people. an excitement and an energy for being an artist when somebody can attach the idea that like you make money”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 10:17

Skinner says fear-driven work shifts his focus from creativity to a fear of not being or having enough.

“it's not about my relationship to creativity. It's about my fear of not being enough or not having enough or whatever that is”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 6:59

Skinner argues that external pressures such as money and validation are the main drivers of self-abandonment for artists.

“the external pressures are the motivations for self-abandonment in a lot of ways”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 7:08

Skinner attributes conspiracy belief to cultural atomization and people seeking agency over why their lives feel hard.

“our culture is so atomized and nihilistic and people don't have like a complete sense of connectivity or community”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:24:52

Skinner argues conspiracy belief is a way to control feelings about external forces while avoiding one's own shadow.

“The conspiracy stuff is wild because it's like a form of trying to control the way we feel in regards to external forces”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:15:24

Skinner concludes that when the problem is always other people there is no solution, a realization he frames as spiritual.

“Well, when the problem is the other people, there's no solution”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 58:30

Skinner says he can detect hierarchical, bypassing dynamics at spiritual centers and distrusts them.

“there's a lot of spiritual bypassing going on here. You know, there's a lot of weird shit. I don't, I don't believe it”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 52:03

Skinner argues that phobias and social harm arise when people refuse to own their darkness and make it the world's problem.

“my fear is for me to navigate. They they make their fear the world's problem”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 39:18

Skinner cites Guillermo del Toro's view that monsters are saints onto which people project isolation and shame.

“That's what I like about Guillermo del Toro's perspective on monsters, which is that they're like saints”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 34:33

Skinner says his monster work metabolizes trauma, comparing his role to a turkey vulture transforming a corpse.

“they're metabolizing this thing so that like it becomes something else. It's like transformative”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 34:56

Skinner says he retreated into fantasy as a child and found ordinary reality mundane, which stunted his social connections.

“Compared to my fantasy world and the isolation of it and the construct of it, the regular world, reality, was like banal and like boring”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 14:44

Skinner says the stop-motion film Shrine of Abominations is being edited and should be finished within a couple of months, with Realm Runners arriving in March.

“the stop motion film is getting edited. It should be done in a couple months and totally finally finished”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:36:01

Skinner says he now sees wrestling as a soap opera of characters and laments the loss of fully realized personas like Macho Man and Honky Tonk Man.

“I miss like a macho man or like honky tonk man or ravishing Rick Rude and stuff”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:29:22

Skinner recounts predicting at age eleven that a stepped-on ketchup packet would spray a woman's legs and that he would be blamed, which then happened.

“if somebody steps on that ketchup packet, it's going to spray on her legs and she's going to blame me for it”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:10:36

Skinner says he can no longer listen to angry screaming vocals and prefers soulful singers like Rob Halford and King Diamond.

“I can't listen to dudes like just screaming anymore with anger”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 1:02:59

Skinner uses Indra's net as a reminder to ask what he is contributing during difficult encounters.

“every opportunity is like a chance for me to kind of reflect on like wait how what does this mean for me though what am i doing”

Seekers of the Eternal: #57 ~ SKINNER: Art, Mythology, Monsters & Self Love (Dec 22, 2024) · Listen from 43:54