creativity

......happiness and the problems that arise when we try to pin things down or group things into categories or describe things. the many different ways we have accounted for the absurdities and uncertainties of the natural and human world. Inventions, things (ideas, substances, visuals, smells) that we ingest, are always changing, maybe because of our insatiable need to create. People often talk of creative geniuses as these esoteric individuals who pull creativity from somewhere out in the void or who have been somehow "blessed" with a "creative" gene. Which is a load of crap. Creativity is about discipline. Which is why so many people are NOT creative; because truly creative things appear as though they came out of the void and so, in attempting to emulate the Greats, the others mistakeingly try to recreate the experience of traveling into the void (hence the drugs, drinking, jackson pollocky stuff) instead of disciplining themselves to a point at which they can be creative doing whatever it is they are doing. really the only two necessary ingredients appear to be willingness and time. and really there is no secret. just discipline. which is why it's cool to actually listen to people talk about their art; because a dot on the wall can be just a dot or it could be the product of some really deep meditation. an inspired dot vs an uninspired dot.

empty
listen
express
delete
empty
listen
express
delete
show others

until you die. or until your creation is what you want it to be; until it's "authentic." i guess authentic, then, means something intentional, well thought out, inspired because you were disciplined enough to remove yourself from the creative act, disciplined enough to shut up and listen, and disciplined enough to weed out what didn't fit.


 

body

my shoulders sag, rhythmically. one step, two step, slow and lumbering; an eternity seems to pass as I slump decrepitly across the maplewood floor. i'm old and ailing. halfway there I perk up and jump 6 times, jerking my elbows and fingers from right angles to straight lines in rapid succession. my knees touch my ribcage as it expands and contracts on each ascent and descent into space, respectively. i'm young and excited. i settle into a relaxed pace and slowly turn to gaze down at my right arm as it twitches furiously every which way. I'm wise and content with life's often apoplectic uncertainties. you enter and we settle into an intertwining dance of submission and resistance, tailored to the call and response of our exhales and inhales. it's parlously vulnerable and directionless.   

words often seem like those trendy new feathers that everyone strings in their hair. the body can tell so many stories. 

dreams

The winds are sweeping in now. It’s hot, but cold under the red sycamore tree where orchids are growing out of every other branch. I pick one and hand it to my teammate. She eats it and we dance, erotically. Our whirling sends colors splashing across the field and, ironically, (because we started out in hopes of inspiring rain), the rainbow we’ve created slowly dehydrates everything around us. We watch from a distance as the Frisbee flies left and right, secretly plotting how best to sneak into the game and use it for the starcraft transporter that it really is.

I’m dreaming, but I know it. Fully awake and able to manipulate reality, constructing absurd scenarios and directing events from atop my velvety sheets, yet titillated by the spontaneity of my actions. Still and active; an observer and a participant; a desert rose in winter. I send myself off with a kiss and watch as my body floats into a creamy wonderland of mystique and vigor. Like a ghost, but human.

 It’s absurd to think that fairytales and fate can lie within your grasp, but only if you submit to the rigidity of absurdity. Me, I’ve learned how to adapt. Like a rubber ball, acknowledging the obstacles, but using them to rebound into a life of eternal spontaneous response. Jettisoning into the ebb and flow of unpredictability with the audacity of a thousand kamikaze soldiers. If I can dream it I can become it. Follow your dreams; they’ll lead you to your destiny. Keep your dreams alive. As it turns out, all of those worldy anecdotes and aphorisms that we’ve been prescribed as children are true, but the people who say them usually have no clue what they mean and the people who know they're true feel strange vocalizing them because they are truly doing them no justice. They’re usually just dreaming… 

how it works

empty self; negligence of thought, so as to be creative; the universe is a series of contradictions trying to work themselves out, be courageous; so as to not succumb to a despair born of comparison, find piece/peace.

empty, create, put forth, find piece/peace.

infinite jest

If everything is but a progression towards one phrase.. 'I love you,' 

then I would think it comically tragic if life were not an infinite jest.

If everything is but a recession from one phrase.. 'I love you,'

then I would think it tragically comical if life were not an infinite jest. 

As it stands, life is a jest of infinite proportions.

You are here to probe at my deepest held sentiments, so that I don't seek refuge in the recesses of conditioned response. 

And I, to you. 

Lose my mind, find my body. 

Out of my head, into the music. 

Less about me, more about you.

Less about you or I, more about us. 

I hope that my children, upon reaching that stage of development whereupon, in reminiscing, they come to find that those motherly words of wisdom were more than just words, can remember "my mama told me there'd be days like this."  I hope that I can teach my children to love, not loath this cycle of  bliss ~> wonder ~> despair ~> neutrality..... so that their whole lives are not neutral, emotionless, loveless. So that they can stick it out through the bad times and remember that the good times will pass too. So that they are able to empathize, be compassionate. So that they don't just have to sit idly by during a downturn and watch the sky change colors because there is nothing else to do, but that they watch it change because there is nothing they'd rather be doing. 




SEXISM 


you allow me to be me. you give me what I lack. my mama always told me to be able function independently. but i want to always be lacking something. empty somewhere, waiting to be filled, the continuous progression towards and recession from 'i love you.' because if i am full, independent, strong, then i can't be in love, because i'll have everything i need. you allow me to be me and i'll let you be you and together will have never felt so good.  

Acidic Reflections of Trips Long Past, Still to Come, and Never to Be

It was just me and you in the room, in bed, swaying to oldies. It was the only place I wanted to be and I found that I was happy that I didn’t yearn for something more. I imagined everything other than this room, this feeling, and you to be impersonal, unfamiliar, and frightening. The city is big yes, but more importantly fast and cut-throat. These four walls will protect us. But then the four walls caved in, got closer and closer like I was being strangled and I felt claustrophobic. I needed to go out and be amongst the impersonal, the scary, the unfarmiliar so that I could appreciate the mundane. I needed to explore! I needed to do things I’d never done before! Get dirty, feel unsafe, cry a little! I imagined life as a big adventure or a mystery waiting to be solved and I wanted to solve it! Life is waiting for me out there! What the hell am I doing in this room staring at a picture? But then I convinced myself that I shouldn’t need to do that. That I should be able to conjur up gratitude, peace, and contentment from somewhere deep within my soul. And every decision felt so weighty, so full of “what-ifs.” I was in prison, a mental prison. Is there any other kind?

Everything was big and scary. Everything was small and intimate. Nothing felt good. Everything felt good. I had no idea who I was or how to be myself. I was myself and it felt so good. 

I found the bad music and the sky turned dark. My attention turned to all of the garbage lying around me and the crowds of people checking their cell phones and complaining about the light drizzle. Then I found the good music and it was bliss. Colors were brighter and my focus drifted towards the happy, dancing people, the careless ones. I danced and thought to myself “this is it! All you have you to do is tune into the good music!” Which is very different from finding the good music.

Inklings of that earlier ‘weighing down’ episode kept creeping to the forefront of my consciousness. I could feel them coming on – those doubts, those “what-ifs?,” that gal in my head trying to convince me that I should try and find a way to enjoy things that didn’t feel right. But I had found the good music and I was determined to keep it playing for as long as possible. And so I shooed them away and felt empowered.

What if this never ends? Or, worse, what if it’s already over and I just don’t know it. Or, better, what if it’s a glimpse of eternity that I’ve just stumbled upon. The beginning of the collusion of trips long past, still to come, and never to be. The sky doesn’t turn dark in the winter and colors aren’t more majestic in the fall. It’s my own undoing and redoing.  

whyyy

 Less in my head, more in my body.

the way this cycle keeps appearing in my life is interesting…….

bliss ~> wonder ~> despair ~> neutrality. 

 Learn to love the circle? Or live into the neutrality? Wade in the peace? I guess it's a matter of choice. I guess I haven't lived long enough to determine whether or not this circle is sustainable, desirable, inevitable or something that diminishes with age. The magical space where music meets circumstance seems to only happen in movies now. Ironically, most of my most magical musical moments have been completely silent. And I’m beginning to feel as though the hues in this circle are beginning to dim. Like the bliss isn’t so blissful anymore and the wonder isn’t of such depth and the despair isn’t of such heft. Like everything is becoming more peaceful. Like everything is magical, wonderful, wistful, and sorrowful, but in a peaceful sort of way. Like I’m ok with not being ok. And then again maybe this is all just fictitious.      

follow your bliss.....

Having any sort of hate in my heart or ill-feelings towards another makes me feel self-conscious. And I can tell when I am self-conscious because it becomes hard for me to move/speak/act and dance fluidly. And when I am not fluid then I am participating in the achievement of life rather than achieving life. I know this because if there is hate in my heart then it is because I am measuring another person up against some standard as if I, myself am somehow justified in making and passing such a negative judgement, as if I myself have been measured against the standard and have proven to be so much more. Being preoccupied with negativity/jealousy/bitterness/loneliness… any such emotion or negative state forces me out of my authentic, transcendental self and into an ego-driven flytrap that needs feeding. It means that I am focused on achieving things, which means I can’t relax and be affected by the ebb and flow of life’s many forms and affect them authentically as well. And then I won’t be able to follow my bliss because I’ll be unable to open up my mind enough to figure out what it is.

Anyway, I am slowly learning why nurturing a spirit of love/empathy/compassion is important. Before it was because someone/thing/doctrine told me so and then it was because putting something loving out into the world was usually reciprocated with something loving in return (made me feel good - and if I'm only acting a certain way because I know i'll affect someone else in a way that will turn around and positively affect me...... ). Both of these things are predicated on recognition, on achievement. The first involves achieving acceptance and appraisal by whomever/whatever it was that was telling me that I should act a certain way. The second involves achieving a desired emotional state. This latest reason feels like the most selfish reason of all, but really it is the least because it does not require anything of anyone/thing; it requires no recognition or achievement, no celebration, or faux reciprocation. It's simply what makes me feel the least self-conscious and therefor the most deeply happy- feeling like myself. 

What is the secret of the timeless vision? From what profundity of the mind does it derive? Why is mythology everywhere the same, beneath its varieties of costume? And what does it teach?

let me love you by doing things with you that you don't want to do, things that are in your...our... best interest....not by indulging with you in fantasies of the flesh, offering you something that you can lust after or helping you satiate some need to feel coddled, being inordinately agreeable, spending a lifetime perfecting the art of cordiality, and i hope you would do the same for me. and i hope that i never become so disenchanted by my surroundings, by so many people hooked on a feeling that i don't appreciate this divine act of love. hooked on a feeling, i'm high on believeing that you're in love with meeeeeee. the more time i spend with you, the more intimate I become with you, the more I  learn to to love you, the less inclined I am to gravitate towards temporary fixes. happiness is already inside of me, no need to put on a show or lust after one. things are great right here, truly. and whenever I start to feel anxious, like they are not, I start searching. i can picture myself going here or there or playing this role or that and it feels good to remember just how adaptable i can be. but really, things are great right here. i am monumental, and so are you.

honestly..?

I’ve been having trouble writing an honest blog for a really long time. Probably because I have a few people who read my blog and have strong opinions about right/wrong that make me feel like I can’t express myself as honestly as I want to.

Ironically, the person who introduced me to the idea of hating a person was the person who taught me the most about love. Self-consciousness always gets in the way… of everything! I grapple with self-consciousness all the time. About how important “me” is and how much of myself I should let go of in the name of learning, feeling, and sharing. I’m definitely attracted to things that require you to surrender yourself for something bigger- I think that maybe everyone is. Playing music with others is one of these things. Dancing is another. Theater is another. The military is another. Spirituality is another. I’ve noticed this most recently in teenage girls trying to learn how to move and be in their bodies. I can’t teach them as well as small children or more mature gymnasts because they are too busy thinking about how they look etc. etc to really allow for freedom of movement. This is who I am when I am at my best – carefree, giddy, silly, focused. People tend to love me when I’m in this state (which is cool feedback) and I love myself too and I try to be there as frequently as possible.

But there are things that get in the way of me being there. These things are all fears. The fear that I don’t have a solid, consistent, core group of friends with whom to share things with. The fear that I’m not consistent enough myself – too unpredictable for people to accept or rely on. The fear that I’ll get sucked in to contributing something(s) that are less than honest to the world, that I’ll have offered a series of facades or episodes in which I’ll have introduced a self that was really not myself for some superficial, ulterior motive like security.

I’ve been attracted to musicians for a while now. Namely because you have to lose yourself in the music in order to play good music – transcend yourself. I've found some free-spirited dancers who are like this too, and I love them just as much. 

 This is what you tried to beat out of me- any iota of self-consciousness. You said it in so many ways and did it mostly with music. I have to make some decisions now, like where to move to, whether or not to be in a relationship, how I’m going to survive, what kind of direction I want to steer my life in. Really, though, almost anything is enjoyable if i can get to that place.

I’ve experienced some divine moments, some really loving moments. Some of them have stretched on for long periods of time. Others have been fleeting glimpses of bliss. But they all make me think about eternity. And I've experienced some really scary moments too - mostly those involving loneliness.

Bonnaroo was great, again. But there, just like in Cali, NYC, with any sports team or movement-based discipline or any group that has any sort of an identity at all - I could almost instantaneously discover the "formula" for what it took to become a member of the "music festival" gang or the hippie gang or whatever you want to call it- consumerism gives you a good idea of what you need to do to be a part of whatever it is you want to be a part of. ironically, the very thing that i was initially attracted to because it offered the appeal of carefree unself-consciousness, out-of-body, love and connectedness proves to be just another example of role-playing - namely hippie culture - listen to the grateful dead, participate in some drum circles, get some dreads, do a lot of acid, smoke a lot of weed, wear earthy colors and tie dye things, talk the talk, walk the walk - consumer culture gives you a pretty good idea of how to be whatever it is you want to be and other people let you know whether or not you are successful at whatever image you are pursuing by accepting/rejecting you through the manifold ways we have to communicate. But any time I've found myself gravitating towards fashioning some predictable/reliable imagine of myself is when I've felt the most empty - like a walking advertisement or a visual math formula - nothing genuine, nothing honest.

ironically, the jist of this blog is the thesis for almost every piece of academic work i've had to write for school - maybe that's why school was so enjoyable for me - because I wrote honestly about transcendence and connectivity and roleplaying and the many ways that different cultures/political groups/artists/other groups of people do it. But then towards the end, I had thought about this so much and knew it so well in theory that it started to make me angry that it was so pervasive and I stopped knowing it in practice.

Really knowing something is so painful. You have to be so brave, so willing to get hurt.

What I know is that I can feel when I’m in love – it’s effortless – and I can feel when I’m not in love – it’s when I’m focused on image maintenance or preservation of some scene. Sometimes I’m unable to get to a place of love because my mind is clogged up with so many different fears. Consistency is I guess my main concern at this point in my life. There was a brief span of time where I felt like life was about adapting. In order to be in a place full of love I need to surrender any idea of myself as maintaining some sort of image or being an agent in helping to preserve some schema. I guess this is what I mean by “consistency.” It’s what puts the majority of people at ease I suppose – but maybe that’s only because the majority of them are also trying to preserve some sort of scene, whatever it may be, because then everything is OK. And if that’s what it takes to have a consistent group of people in your life or a consistent anything than I’m not so sure that’s what I want. I want to be consistently in a place of love, surrender, sillyness. I guess that is ultimately what all of these quirky little fall-backs are for – blogging, callisthenics, music, theater, my box in the woods, spirituality, books, movies, games, whatever whatever – in order to feel good and have fun doing any of them I need to surrender and sometimes they help retrain me, refocus me on that ultimate task when I’ve lost my way.   

I hope to offer something genuine to the world –whatever I do, whoever I’m with, wherever I am. I hope this blog was honest. 

Intimacy

I find that I'm heartbroken every time I perform an artistic piece I've been toiling with, especially a solo piece, because it means the death of it. I love them all intimately and with every new chance to perform, I find that, from experience, I can tell when I've fallen in love with it. If the exhibition occurs before I've gotten the chance to fall in love, then there is something amiss and I feel unfulfilled and unimmortal. When I get to the point at which I can say I am in love with you, dance! then I am ready to share it with the world, because I believe in what I am sharing. I'm giving the world a piece of myself, I'm sharing true love, I've transcended myself, and hopefully I'm awakening the desire for true love in others. Anything less, is brown bananas.


Emotional attachments give me depth. Intimacy warms my body.

As it turns out, all of those worldy anecdotes and aphorisms are true, but the people who say them usually have no clue what they mean and the people who know they're true feel strange vocalizing them because they are truly doing them no justice.

"If I've learned anything in my 21-or-so years, it's that 'singer-songwriter's can neither sing nor write a song, and that, by the same token, 'workout-buffs' are never fit. 'Workaholics' are usually lazy/unproductive, and 'creative writing' is often plagiarised."  -CM

helium

Flabbergasted. This usually doesn’t happen until sometime after 1 o’clock, but I guess being surrounded by so many balloons is sufficient enough to incite such an emotional state. In a world of so many lost causes, how could there be so much helium? I know, I know, this too shall pass, but until then, I’ll continue to take my time in the shower. Depending on which way I turn the knob, it’s hot on a cold winter’s day and cool on a warm summer’s day. Unless by some fluke chance it’s a warm winter’s day in which case I’d take a bath. As luck may have it, I am not German. But if I were, I’d probably still be flabbergasted since I imagine German folk are not immune to such provocations of the mind, although by the intonations of their language you might think otherwise. Sure, Wir dreschen leeres Stro, but I’d still like to consume my wienerschnitzel with relative haste. Everything is everything, that’s what I keep telling myself. Ultimately, it’s meaningless, but also and ultimately meaningful, and if they accepted aphorisms at insane asylums I would write a hearty letter of recommendation on its behalf. Give it a 7 on the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale and diagnose it as an outlier, the everpresent goal being to normalize the spectrum of human expressions, when all I want is my MTV. And maybe a small veggie burger. Accordingly, it’s out of our hands and up to the government to decide what to do here. That’s usually a good answer to every question and a great way to evade responsibility, second only to hiding in the closet and plugging your ears. Unless you telephone capitalism and have the two go at it on some remote farm in Nebraska. Corn has been known to be an honest witness, except in March. Farming, on the other hand, a completely dishonest trade, has been known to produce crops. It is in this setting that Uncle Sam meets the Invisible Hand. My money’s on Apple. And still, how is it that there is so much helium? 

everything is everything

that scene with the over protective father who screams at his daddy's-little-girl daughter. after she rolls her eyes, yells "but dadddddddd," and stomps away his scowl dissipates into a knowing grin. like, you may hate me now, but this is going to be the stuff of birthday cards in a decade or so.

self

The moment I start to feel slighted because people don't realize how great I am is the moment at which I am not great. I've been confronted with the idea that I am selfish more than once now during my past 2 relationships. And both times I've noticed that my immediate reaction was usually "how dare you, I am most definitely not selfish." Is this not, if I had not been before, proving that yes I am selfish? The minute  that I develop the attitude that I somehow understand things on a deeper level because I devoted more whatever to trying to figure them out is the minute that I only understand them on a shallow level. The minute I say I have nothing to learn is the moment at which I have the most to learn. I'm sure there's some witty anecdote for this truism, but I'm writing from my heart, almost emotionally, about something that could have been deduced logically and rationally. I've graduated school, yet there are so many things that people who are less educated than I know better. I look at my little girls in the gym and think, damn, I have the greatest teachers right here. It's like getting paid to learn vs learning because you paid. And the things that have "shoulds" attached to them, the things that have kept me "grounded" are the same things that hold me back.

just thinking

Old man #1:  See, I was just thinking....
Old man #2: Well that's your first problem!


- habitat for humanity NC 

There's this thing that I like to do at the end of my yoga classes and anytime I'm in a contemplative mood... like tonight when I was watching the sky darken in the forest. I like to listen (I haven't really experimented a lot with the other senses) and let everything sort of jumble into ambiguous sounds. Like I'll be lying there and people will start moving all around me and I'll hear the floor creaking and clothes shuffling and voices whispering or like tonight I'll hear birds chirping and leaves rustling and the wind howling and sounds of cars driving by in the distance and If I'm real good then everything will just be "sound" instead of "footstep" "bird" "wind" "whisper." I'll stop my mind from labeling. In these moments, I am neither happy nor sad, anxious nor peaceful.. I just am. Maybe you can call it being peaceful? I think I like just being better. These moments of just being are among my favorites. At least I think they are? I guess I can only appreciate them in retrospect. But I'm so beyond words happy that I have them because sometimes I feel so alone being around so many silence fillers. And when I'm not categorizing then I'm also not drawing any conclusions ie. I should be anxious right now or somewhere other than Here or going through a laundry list of other things.

I like the relationship I have with this blog at the moment. Now, when I write, I feel like I'm getting a hug. Like tonight, I was in this weird mood and I didn't know what I needed - meditation? company? food? laughs? something to stimulate my intellect? And I'm happy that I've given myself a place to write.

Silence can be the most courageous act. So can speaking. And vice versa. so funny, how we react to things ephemeral.

One of my uncles seems pretty hot tempered sometimes, pretty adamantly convicted of some of his decisions (ie. can I go out tonight with friends?) but as soon as you throw in an "I love you" he melts and you can get him to do whatever you want! I hope that I never grow so callous and numb that I am not moved by an appeal to love. I hope I am always capable of being (when necessary, a least a bit, maybe a lot...) vulnerable.

I've been thinking a lot about this: you are what you repeatedly do. Time always seems to be the necessary ingredient. If I decide that I want to be forgiving, keep forgiving, even when it hurts. If I decide that I want to be healthy, light-hearted, ultra-disciplined, insane, a good whatever....  repetition. Keep forgiving, especially yourself.

I've noticed that, for whatever reason, I REALLY like learning. It's not that I love music, dance, contemplation, etc. etc. etc. in and of themselves... it's really just that playing music or ballroom dancing or anything new gives me something new to learn. And I'm most happy when I can get to the point of being able to improv or "speak" with ease through any of these mediums. People keep saying why do you keep going to that stupid bar or why don't you find another job and the biggest reason is because anything that I've held tight to is a fertile garden of education.

And then what is all of this for, this learning biznas? I was thinking about "for better or for worse" the other day and I like it a lot, but I'm going to give whoever/whatever is at the other end of that as easy a job as possible by keeping my mind fertile, my body healthy, my spirit pure.

just

It’s just a thing we do,
Feathered and floating,
Dripping with concession.  
It’s our essential nature 
to just wade.

time

Right now, at least, it's not about God. It's not about the Music. It's not about the Dance. It's not about being the strongest, making lots of money, my ego, accumulating educational merits, being a greater lover, being the most flexible, the most meditative, looking good, talking pretty. It's about what happens mentally, physiologically I guess, when I sustain any of these activities for a good length of time. It's all about sitting in that split for a half hour despite the little voices inside my head telling me that I should be doing something else, that this is too painful, not worth it...anything negative. It's about strumming that same chord for hours despite the fact that some little voice keeps telling me how boring it is. It's about getting over that hump, that 'i-should-be-anywhere-but-here' phase to the inexplicably euphoric place of meditative absorption, then reaping all the after-effects. Stayin' alive, stayin' alive, oh oh oh oh......  it's about putting in the time and silencing anything that is not 'this is exactly where you should be right now.'

    Ironically, it was all about the music. It was all about God. It was all about the Dance and the love and the gymnastics and education. But really it's just about sitting with something you love or something you hate and getting to know it. Watching the clouds, laying in bed, painting your nails, reading a book, watching a movie, doing a dance, playing a song. repetition. Philip Glass comes to mind right here. Then anything mundane will quickly turn into ecstasy. And I'm tempted to say that the finished product doesn't really matter.. but it  does... it's a testament to a practice that has worked and it's what motivates the act of sustaining. it's a testament to commitment. And that's what it's all about; committing, being there. Keep up. It's happening right here right now, man. 

it's cloudy up there

Leila is eternalizing the sunshine of her spotless mind and letting thoughts pass by like clouds.