6

Sometimes I work all day just telling myself over and over, ‘…for the love of doing it.’ Simultaneously I sit in pure astonishment wondering how I ended up in this suburban hell.
I hate this. I hate this computer. I hate this blog. I hate the work I do. I hate my life and almost everyone in it. I hate myself and what I have become. And yet suicide doesn’t teach anyone anything; it’ll hurt those few that liked you and have no affect on the systems in place that drove the individual to their final point. Though, I have a deep respect for those that are suicidal, and those that can carry it out; good for you.

Ironically, they’ll never read this after the deed is done.

There enlies the humor. Nothing is as funny as death; because nothing is as funny as that which is unknown. It’s not funny in a conventional sense but I think as a culture we need to reconcile that most true of all facts; you’re going to die. Not today and not tomorrow but it is guaranteed. Eventually your children will die and everything that you ever knew and loved will be gone. And the world will march on all the same. Time is a relative construct and it never changes it’s like gravity or any one of the various bells that rule our universe that a human mind fails to comprehend. (and I mean Fails; the idea that the inherent mass of the planet keeps me from flying off into some vacuum abyss doesn’t even begin to make sense to me. I get the gist of it, I don’t have a better expression or theory, but in a strictly empirical sense I know of nothing else and for me to speak on a subject like gravity or death would be a fool’s errand.) We can speculate about anything, but the truth is simple we are both ‘in’ the universe and ‘of’ the universe. I like that my brain exists, I don’t like that ages, I don’t like that it can fail, I don’t like that I am a human and destined to a life that is finite. As far as the universe is concerned, I like to think of it in a strangely religious sort of fervor.

            Time is not important without the ability to perceive it. Despite what you may have heard rocks don’t give a fuck about time. They don’t care about gravity. They lack the capacity to care, because they are simply inanimate objects. In this way we understand anything to the effect that we can perceive it (like myself regarding gravity and death) our minds have precognition only to the point that it effects our perception. I can plan where I am going to be in the future but I cannot guarantee it, interestingly I can modify my perceived future by sheer willpower within the parameters of my time, place, and reality. Being realistic is a strength in this matter because it helps gauge what you’re going for, somewhat like understanding the density of an object by looking at it. (and don’t give me some fuck-head counter example like aerogel) You can predict with a certain margin of error that you will probably drink water at some point in the future. As a human the likelihood of it is relatively high and these are simple examples. Taken a step further; things like Oedipal hubris is a fabrication of the human imagination. Useful hubris is the ability to manifest one’s goals which is the only actual application of that idea. This then dissolves into efficacy principles.

Ironically, there is still so much that remains undiscovered. I sculpt in excess of 30 hours a week, I sit there all day telling myself that it will all be over soon enough, that I love doing this, that I wish I were somewhere else, that I have feelings that are important to express. These are all lies that I tell myself over and over again to remain productive. I like to think they are true and I want to believe it, but that has yet to be seen. This is the limit to that ‘useful hubris’ idea; even if I really want to manifest something I am not guaranteed any outcomes. But I do believe that there is something inherently beautiful in the struggle, almost erotic, it is that same feeling that makes desire and want so important. This is in part what makes the human experience so transcendent and trivial. Humans, like all “higher” life forms have desires, human desires are the most abstract and by context the most complex but the idea of desire could be understood as a noble conquest all the same. Want is a powerful driving force, one that should be understood to the level of something like gravity and death. Each planet has its own gravity, each living organism will experience its own death. Similarly each living organism seeks its own desires. I feel that there must be an emergent point when an organism reaches a threshold that establishes desires. These desires then shape the existence of that organism. (…and then I suppose some human will go on to give it a name. idk…) What separates a ficus from a magnolia (two plants that are close relatives in the scheme of things) is some internal driving force that seeks establish some kind of internal property. In all likelihood this is driven by external factors like climate and predators. A ficus next to a magnolia placed in a scenario where they both can thrive in does not mean that one or the other devolves into a more rudimentary form, or that if left long enough in one place their evolution will converge into a purely adaptive form to their specific scenario. On the contrary, the two relatively related organisms will continue to evolve and grow towards the path that they were already on. What fascinates me is this understanding that once an organism reaches a kind of ‘comfort precipice’ it ceases to develop. ( eg: Horeshoe crabs, Ginkgo biloba seem to persist in a world where their inherent design has remained ‘good enough’ for so long that it is hard to understand them as anything but what they are.) That said I think it is an inherently human to develop, a human form is a form that is inherently progressive. The design is not particularly specialized, but is capable of nearly everything that it can focus its willpower at and can be understood only by its own measure.

  That said; it could be deduced that we essentially created ourselves. Each “higher” organism is a product of one very driven cell interacting with another. A single connection that could represent anything but is limited within a reality that it can only become one.   

      

   

5

When people ask, I say that my artwork is a spell. I make street art when I feel that the object of that spell should be directed at society. I make abstract art when I feel that the spell is a feeling that I am trying to release from my mind. In the recent months I have become a decent enough artist to start capturing bigger and more industrious targets but it’s always the same; it’s always a spell. I like to imagine myself as some sort of post-modern wizard that generates images and sculpture that can open they hearts and minds of others. I say this, but my work doesn’t have nearly that much efficacy. I am just a human so my spells can only be human-spells.  

            My friend Brian came home from Afghanistan with shrapnel in three parts of his body. After surgery and a downed helicopter, he was back together no worse for the wear. Upon the completion of his service he bought a blue painting of a eucalyptus tree that I was working on when he came home for the scripted visiting of friends and family as he repeatedly retold his experience. He came by and acquired the painting in the rain, sitting in an SUV filled with his belongings he shoved everything aside to personally hold the piece for the long ride to the high desert. It hangs above his bed, as a childish blue monument that seems to be decomposing in thick blue drops. He once confided in me: “I saw a lotta’ shit overseas, I’ve got some Demons inside of me after all that, but when I look at this... I don’t know… it, it.. just makes me feel like everything is gonna to be okay.” I like to imagine that the painting itself magically and methodically pulled the shrapnel from his body and sutured his wounds and eased him into a deep sleep where he had no memory of what happened in that country on the far side of the world. I know this is a lie, it was military surgeons that pulled the shards from his body. It was time that closed his open wounds, it was time that expired and brought him home.

I like to imagine Brian standing in front of that painting as it eats up every unhappy memory of his life like some psychological sponge. I hope it uproots any demon and fills his room with happy dreams.

 I imagine what a Eucalyptus is; as it sheds its skin from each previous year to grow a little taller and a little stronger. The scars of every previous season fall to the earth in elegant fissured ribbons leaving no memory that they even took place.     

   

4

It bums me out that there never seems to be anything on television that holds my attention anymore. I could blame people. I could blame a specific person if I had to and ironically they are not on television. They know who they are.

They’re not going to read this blog though, they don’t read. It’s not that they can’t, it’s that they don’t.

So in a weird way, I often think we live in a kind of personal stasis: A good friend of mine is uneducated and does not seek education but fails to see the difference between being paid for what one does and being paid for what one thinks. This is not my own concept, I learned it from a school. Somebody taught this to me. I do not follow it to the letter either. But to put everything into perspective one must understand the limitations of their perspective. This should not be understated though; essentially, this is the destruction of our ego. To see beyond oneself one must essentially (and habitually) seek to expand their psychological territory. It is a trait that I find uniquely human. But a similar counter could be made to this as well; if being ‘good enough’ didn’t work out for the dinosaurs, why should being proactive work out for us?

And on the surface it makes sense, even to me; why get out of bed at all if you’re just going to die someday. Death is a guarantee. It is not necessarily that this is always the way things will be but as it stands now we are prisoners and captains to our own lives. Our respective ignorance limits and directs the course of our lives in a subtle but powerful way.
I don’t know exactly what this means. This is the extent of my knowledge. I can say nothing more to this effect than to speculate.

To continue with that note, I believe that what I have to say is important to a level that is something external to my control. That said I am human, or I was, I don’t quite know anymore. I look like you. I talk like you. Technically, I am a common demographic in your population. But the reality is that it could be debated. I do my best to hide it well, but it is not always easy. However this not without its gratification and I find that many of the things that bind me to this world are many of the same things that bind this world together. It is within these routes that I am able to interact with others of my kind, others of your kind, others of any kind and it tends to be rewarding. This world has come up with some very entertaining activities. But I suppose that my whole reason for writing was not simply to occupy time but rather offer a warning; enjoy free entertainment as much as possible.         

3

Because the tattoo of a fractal would look stupid

I can’t do it justice

I don’t think anyone could

But then I tell myself that there is probably a machine that could do it justice

But machienes don’t fucking get tattoos.

Because thay aren’t human. Humans get tattoos,

This what makes them what they are.

 we are the only animal that I know of to exhibit this behavior. 

Im sure theres some other thing out there that I haven’t yet considered that does some similar thing but that’s really not the point.

And sit playing

Singing softly into the  bent iridescent jellybean reflection of my stolen snowboard goggles

And the words coming out of my mouth are beautiful and soft but are not the same

As what’s going through my mind; which is busily, loudly chanting to himself;

“there is no spoon.”

There is no spoon

thereisnospoon…

and the figure reflected in the  curve

of the single orange and yellow lens

tears away at a pawnshop guitar

irreverent to

his sleeping neighbors

obsessive lifestyle

or the feelings of those who will find out tomorrow

there was no big bang.

…not in the sense of ‘before and after’ anyway