It Just Occured To Me
...How many things there are that I want to rant about. And how many things I've been wanting to rant about here for a while. I feel like the whole world is in that bus at the end of the Italian Job, teetering on the edge of the abyss. We may plummet at any moment, or we may be ok. Or, much more likely, we'll be here in limbo on the cliff's edge for a very long time before inching our way up or down. There are so many reasons for that, and they ought to be so obvious, but most of the world seems to be incapable or unwilling to grasp how all the pieces of the big picture are interconnected and it's driving me crazy. It's like a big jigsaw and it's right there in front of me, yet like the obese person who keeps eating at McDonald's every day, no one seems to be interested in lifting a finger to change our culture into something that could last for another century, not even the ones who want to try. They're more interested in howling at each other over their pet causes and laying the foundation of the next American civil war. *ggggrrrrrrrraaaaaggghhhh*!
*Deep breath*
But that's not what I want to write about today. See, I've been juggling about a half dozen somewhat interconnected creative projects for a while now. Because I've been in one form of post-secondary education or another for most of the last decade, (I never would have believed that if you had told me in high school :P) I really don't have time to do as much as I would like to. At the same time I've never been able to do anything when nothing was going on and I did have the time, because I had nothing to draw on then. So in the last couple of years the main time I've gone through any sort of creative growth spurt has been during the summer while I was working. And both times I have come up against one major double hurdle: I don't like political art, but I think good art should have something to say, and I don't like the idea of me or my life as a subject. So on one hand I need a creative outlet, several even, but on the other hand I don't have anything meaningful I want to say.
I've been asking myself that question for a while. "What do I have to say? What do I want to say? What do I want my art to say?" Everything that I have to say is very political and would work better as a series of blog posts than in any of my projects. But I never write those posts. I kind of don't want to write them- I keep my views mainly to myself because I have some pretty strong opinions and they're coming from a very apolitical but politically engaged place, and no one wants to be a prophet of doom. Also I do think that the left-right divide has gotten so extreme in western politics that it may well spark civil wars once the last of the hippie baby boomers have hit the retirement homes. Anyone who thinks the left-right rift if fundamentally wrong like I do (in its modern form, it worked differently in the recent past) is likely to get called a fence sitter at best. This destructive 'for us or against us' propaganda that's flying around has become too entrenched in individual's minds.
So here's my great dilemma: I actually do have something to say. It's political ie. boring and inflammatory (and if I don't piss off both sides I did it wrong). I'm afraid of what will happen to the world if I don't say it. I'm afraid of what will happen if I do say it. I'm afraid that if I say it and get the reaction I expect that I won't have the energy to keep the screaming match up and that in modern screaming matches that means I lose. I'm afraid that if I say it out loud exactly as I mean it it will just get lost in the midst of the great screaming match anyway. So the best way to get it out is to weave it into what I do and see what happens, but I'm not clever enough to do it well, plus I'm breaking my stay away from politics in creative stuff rule. But then what else do I have to say with my mediums? I certainly don't have enough style to avoid substance. The things I wanted to write about when I was younger seem like cliches now that I've seen them with a little perspective. They don't interest me any more. I can just stumble on themes one thing at a time, but I'd rather have a vision driving it in a coherent direction.
So, what just occurred to me? That maybe keeping it pent up a bit has been part of the reason I've been having so many ideas lately in the first place. That maybe the frustration of not knowing how to say something important will lead to it coming out in all sorts of directions. That maybe- just maybe- because I write best when I'm angry, (I almost never get angry) and blogging lets me let of steam, blogging is part of what put me in a creative slump a few years ago. I dunno. We'll see what I come up with after I graduate this December. But then, like now, sometimes blogging helps me get my thoughts in order and lets off just enough pressure so that I can work with all the steam that's left.
I will say this though, why the hooey did what we eat and what we drive and what we learn and what we buy and what we borrow and spend have to become part of left-right political divide? Because if we don't take a good honest look at those things soon and change habits for the better, bad things are coming, far worse that any 'Great Recession'. :S
*Deep breath*
But that's not what I want to write about today. See, I've been juggling about a half dozen somewhat interconnected creative projects for a while now. Because I've been in one form of post-secondary education or another for most of the last decade, (I never would have believed that if you had told me in high school :P) I really don't have time to do as much as I would like to. At the same time I've never been able to do anything when nothing was going on and I did have the time, because I had nothing to draw on then. So in the last couple of years the main time I've gone through any sort of creative growth spurt has been during the summer while I was working. And both times I have come up against one major double hurdle: I don't like political art, but I think good art should have something to say, and I don't like the idea of me or my life as a subject. So on one hand I need a creative outlet, several even, but on the other hand I don't have anything meaningful I want to say.
I've been asking myself that question for a while. "What do I have to say? What do I want to say? What do I want my art to say?" Everything that I have to say is very political and would work better as a series of blog posts than in any of my projects. But I never write those posts. I kind of don't want to write them- I keep my views mainly to myself because I have some pretty strong opinions and they're coming from a very apolitical but politically engaged place, and no one wants to be a prophet of doom. Also I do think that the left-right divide has gotten so extreme in western politics that it may well spark civil wars once the last of the hippie baby boomers have hit the retirement homes. Anyone who thinks the left-right rift if fundamentally wrong like I do (in its modern form, it worked differently in the recent past) is likely to get called a fence sitter at best. This destructive 'for us or against us' propaganda that's flying around has become too entrenched in individual's minds.
So here's my great dilemma: I actually do have something to say. It's political ie. boring and inflammatory (and if I don't piss off both sides I did it wrong). I'm afraid of what will happen to the world if I don't say it. I'm afraid of what will happen if I do say it. I'm afraid that if I say it and get the reaction I expect that I won't have the energy to keep the screaming match up and that in modern screaming matches that means I lose. I'm afraid that if I say it out loud exactly as I mean it it will just get lost in the midst of the great screaming match anyway. So the best way to get it out is to weave it into what I do and see what happens, but I'm not clever enough to do it well, plus I'm breaking my stay away from politics in creative stuff rule. But then what else do I have to say with my mediums? I certainly don't have enough style to avoid substance. The things I wanted to write about when I was younger seem like cliches now that I've seen them with a little perspective. They don't interest me any more. I can just stumble on themes one thing at a time, but I'd rather have a vision driving it in a coherent direction.
So, what just occurred to me? That maybe keeping it pent up a bit has been part of the reason I've been having so many ideas lately in the first place. That maybe the frustration of not knowing how to say something important will lead to it coming out in all sorts of directions. That maybe- just maybe- because I write best when I'm angry, (I almost never get angry) and blogging lets me let of steam, blogging is part of what put me in a creative slump a few years ago. I dunno. We'll see what I come up with after I graduate this December. But then, like now, sometimes blogging helps me get my thoughts in order and lets off just enough pressure so that I can work with all the steam that's left.
I will say this though, why the hooey did what we eat and what we drive and what we learn and what we buy and what we borrow and spend have to become part of left-right political divide? Because if we don't take a good honest look at those things soon and change habits for the better, bad things are coming, far worse that any 'Great Recession'. :S