Just woke up, can't get back (immediately) to sleep... There is always so much to do. I have been having a hard time fitting in appointments during the M-Sat workweek, so oftentimes, well, always, they "bleed" into the weekends. And with Lynn's sister (and Soukan and baby Ian) visiting from Minnesota, it's hard to find any breathing time...
I recently started listening to "Lynn's Freak Mix," a mix of music I made for her when we were still just dating. Here's a sample (it really is a freak mix):
1) "I think God can explain" by Splendor (sp?)
2) "High and dry" by Radiohead
3) "99 Red Balloons" by Nene (english version)
4) "Old bathwater" by No Doubt (I call this the bunny hop song, or in taiko speak, the don don dododon song)
5) "Teenage dirtbag" by Wheatus
6) "Misery" by Soul Asylum
7) "The Wheel" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians
8) "Karma Police" by Radiohead...
etc.
I also threw in "Nanafushi" by Kodo and a few Debussy songs, including "Sunken Cathedral."
A lot of these songs are my favorite Karaoke tunes (or they would be, if they made Laser Discs of Dweeb songs). In particular, I like "Misery" by Soul Asylum. Back when I was in Japan, it was a new CD, and I listened to it like every day. So I suppose the songs on that CD evoke memories of that time.
Lyrics to the song:
"They say misery loves company
We could start a company
and make misery.
Frustrated incorporated..."
Jeez, was I frustrated back then. Feeling like, hum, not Sisyphus, but, oh yeah, TANTALUS (think of the mountain round here), surrounded by water but not having a drop to drink... I think when you are young, or at least you are still able to pretend you are, you can laugh a little at being alone, like it's just that you haven't found your "niche" yet, or that it's not you, it's something wrong with the world at large... But as time passes, as years pass, and nothing seems to change in your situation, you start to worry. Maybe, just maybe, something's wrong with your approach; maybe you've got a piece of spinach stuck on your front incisor; maybe your jokes are not only unfunny, but they reveal a bit too much about your idiosyncratic preoccupations.
Maybe, to sum it up, it's YOU.
...and then, worry worry panic (or as Nene sings: "worry worry super scurry"), the self doubt, the self examination begins, and every statement you make and every appearance you present goes through the uncertain censor, filtering, filtering...
It's a miracle, I suppose, that people like myself ever "got any..." Tripping over my own self-corrections... edited version of me.
***
The game we play in life, perhaps it only has a few set moves. Who knows how we inherited those moves, genetics or childhood experiences? But I think from a very early time, we only know how to react to the world in certain ways. If only we weren't aware of this fact, but like animals, almost seemed to rejoice in the way we react the same way to the same (or even different) stimuli, portrayed beauty akin to water that doesn't know anything other than finding a way down down down... But we always have the capability, the damnable (?) human capability, of stepping outside of our skin to look at ourselves "objectively", to critique, to "self-correct." And much as we talk of "civilization" and truisms like "history repeats itself," sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't all have just been better off without an overactive superego perched like a gargoyle over our experiences... Instead of a smooth and flawless performance on the stage of life, oftentimes we feel like there's someone loud and obnoxious jeering at our perceived mistakes, throwing popcorn and embarassing insults from the darkness and anonymity of the audience... We become an absurdity, a freak show, of OUR OWN MAKING.
The only moments of beauty I have discovered in myself have been those in which I was able to blind myself to myself, and just pretend that I WAS what I intended. Blindness, for me, is the secret to everything, my key out of my prison... There's a reason why Odysseus poked out the eye of the Cyclops, you see; it was the only way to steal away from the island.
(imperfectly recalled) Lyrics I am thinking about now (by some band I don't recall):
"Twenty years in this birthday suit
Baby's grown older, it's no longer cute."
***
It all comes back to the audience, I suppose. Who is your audience? Who are you really trying to impress?
The artist, paradoxically, tries to remove herself from the audience, aware that too many eyes spoil the performance... But then, why is she doing it in front of anyone anyway???
There have been papers I wrote for teachers I sought to impress, and the fact that, on occasion, I seemed to accomplish this, well, funny, but those are some of my best accomplishments... Does it matter that I can barely understand what I was talking about back then? Does it matter that no one in the general population can understand what I was talking about back then?
... this was an issue for a younger me, and for my younger friends, but it is still relevant... If you are surrounded by people who expect to hear things a certain way, then how, as a speaker, as a creative producer of language, is it ever possible to say anything NEW, to break the crust of experience? ... and forget saying something NEW, how is it ever possible to really say what you mean, to express "who you are?" Particularly if "who you are" isn't in the language of those around you...
DOES IT MATTER IF YOU ARE A WORD THAT THERE IS NO MEANING FOR? DOES IT MATTER IF YOU DO NOT BELONG IN ANYONE ELSE'S VOCABULARY???
What is art if no one sees it? What is a voice if no one can hear it? Is there a point to the artistic production then?
It's to the point, I suppose, because this blog is perhaps read by one person... occasionally... What is the point of its continuance?
I say art is produced in blindness, but then, it is produced for someone, even if that someone is more an "As If" who I imagine, the figurative and idealized READER who could understand the turns of thought I make... Is there, though, a larger purpose to something like this "blog," other than my own machinations?
How do you feel when you write? Before the self-reflection, before the audience, how does it feel to you when you write?
ReplyDeleteOf course, the audience and impression management might creep in as the words are formulated, crossed out, rewritten, etc., but between those spaces, what is it like for you?
When I was writing songs, there came a point that I was so totally focused on the words, the messages, the music of it...I would say that I was convinced about the relevance of it all, but in most ways my true contentment lay less about the "relevance" and more about the "convinced". After it was crafted and played for others, that's when the disappointment came in (for the many reasons you stated). Of course I wanted my friends and others to rave and love it all, and maybe they did and maybe mostly they didn't (though they might've been polite). But in the pure creation of it all...that was ok.
So, when you write, how does it feel? And here's the funny part about posing the question - don't think too hard about the answer,and don't reflect too much on the answer. That would ruin it, wouldn't it? Or, as yoda would say, there is no try (i.e. self-reflection)...do or do not.
I hope you continue to do.