revelations
Realizations come along piece by piece, but there's always one moment of clarity when all of the bits are arranged by the inertia of events, or idle shuffling of thoughts. There was such a moment some time ago, as I sat with my family in a tent which was our dining room that particular summer weekend: I was asked a question, the exact verbiage of which I don't recall right now but have recorded elsewhere - something to the effect of "what do you want to do with your life?" Generally when I'm asked direct questions I have a great deal of difficulty answering them on the spot, as if the pressure of providing a worthy response entirely disables my cognitive function. That time, though, I responded easily, despite a lack of any forethought: "to absorb and contribute." It worked. I can't ever feel that I have failed at it, and it applies to the entirety of my life. It's something I've come back to when I have needed to pause for a moment and realize I've actually traveled some distance from where I began.
It struck me again today. As I walked into the kitchen at work to retrieve a tea bag and some hot water, from which to derive a delicious and lightly caffeinated beverage, my train of thought chugged into an old familiar station. I had passed by a 30-year-old coworker, a woman who reminds me vaguely of myself when I had just left high school. Made me think of where I would be if I had never tried to move forward. I've had some periods of complacency, dragged my feet in the mire, and true, it's difficult to release oneself from a comfortable prison of one's choosing. But I've moved past putting myself in situations that do nothing for me. Or so I thought. So what am I still doing with a day job?
Well, I've been doing it. I know how to do it. I'm damn good at it, in point of fact, rising quickly through the ranks wherever I go by accumulating understanding through practice, observation and extrapolation. This environment and these tasks make sense to me, or at least the patterns do, enough to fake what I don't know until it is learned. But I don't want to be doing that when I'm 30. Then what do I want to be doing? The answer I gave myself, dipping my teabag into the hot water and staring idly at the vending machine from which I purchased nothing in the end, was "creating." Creating patterns, patterns in sounds and words and colors. Why wouldn't I be doing that? Because I'm not doing it now. In order to be doing it, I have to have been doing it, and if I never do it I won't ever be.
I've drawn plenty, and written a fair amount; I've played music most of my life and manifested many original sonic formations no one has ever witnessed, but I have never created in the sense that I would be releasing something into the world to be made real through people's shared experiences of it. Who knows whether I will ever create anything of consequence. I have a lot of thoughts with little potential for practical application, but maybe they ought to be gotten out of the way. I've never completed a narrative work; I've finalized perhaps three illustrations to my satisfaction. Most other projects are abandoned and never referred to out of embarrassment for having started something I didn't try very hard to follow through on because I just felt too obligated. But that could be part of the problem, too. I don't get any practice working past these things because I never really fail out loud. So fuck portfolios. Fuck waiting for the new year to make a resolution, fuck presentability, fuck words that exist and this juvenile fuck-everything mentality itself. I'm not ready for any of it. I excel at coloring inside the lines and even my sandboxes have always had walls. Spontaneity without expectation holds me to no standard. Maybe I'm taking this thought in the wrong direction entirely. There's only one sure way to find out.
It struck me again today. As I walked into the kitchen at work to retrieve a tea bag and some hot water, from which to derive a delicious and lightly caffeinated beverage, my train of thought chugged into an old familiar station. I had passed by a 30-year-old coworker, a woman who reminds me vaguely of myself when I had just left high school. Made me think of where I would be if I had never tried to move forward. I've had some periods of complacency, dragged my feet in the mire, and true, it's difficult to release oneself from a comfortable prison of one's choosing. But I've moved past putting myself in situations that do nothing for me. Or so I thought. So what am I still doing with a day job?
Well, I've been doing it. I know how to do it. I'm damn good at it, in point of fact, rising quickly through the ranks wherever I go by accumulating understanding through practice, observation and extrapolation. This environment and these tasks make sense to me, or at least the patterns do, enough to fake what I don't know until it is learned. But I don't want to be doing that when I'm 30. Then what do I want to be doing? The answer I gave myself, dipping my teabag into the hot water and staring idly at the vending machine from which I purchased nothing in the end, was "creating." Creating patterns, patterns in sounds and words and colors. Why wouldn't I be doing that? Because I'm not doing it now. In order to be doing it, I have to have been doing it, and if I never do it I won't ever be.
I've drawn plenty, and written a fair amount; I've played music most of my life and manifested many original sonic formations no one has ever witnessed, but I have never created in the sense that I would be releasing something into the world to be made real through people's shared experiences of it. Who knows whether I will ever create anything of consequence. I have a lot of thoughts with little potential for practical application, but maybe they ought to be gotten out of the way. I've never completed a narrative work; I've finalized perhaps three illustrations to my satisfaction. Most other projects are abandoned and never referred to out of embarrassment for having started something I didn't try very hard to follow through on because I just felt too obligated. But that could be part of the problem, too. I don't get any practice working past these things because I never really fail out loud. So fuck portfolios. Fuck waiting for the new year to make a resolution, fuck presentability, fuck words that exist and this juvenile fuck-everything mentality itself. I'm not ready for any of it. I excel at coloring inside the lines and even my sandboxes have always had walls. Spontaneity without expectation holds me to no standard. Maybe I'm taking this thought in the wrong direction entirely. There's only one sure way to find out.