all in all, work is a happy place. certainly, there are difficulties, but they aren't insurmountable. certainly, i would wish that my students were more motivated, or that they "got things" quicker... but i wouldn't be in this job if i couldn't maintain a belief that there's hope in hopelessness... i like to think that, no matter what, some part of my love and intention seeps into these kids, and whether they "get it" during my tenure with them, or afterwards, it results in these kids "waking up" to the possibilities that i see in them. that is always my hope.
*****
as far as my writing's concerned... well, i guess it's going... i guess. of course, my cycles are getting wider and more spaced out, so there's more time to forget... more time to neglect... oblivion can be a good thing or a bad thing, i suppose. maybe a little oblivion is what keeps us from complete despair. if we remembered how terrible things were, then maybe we wouldn't have the courage to ever get up and do them again.
*****
inside, i suppose i am feeling very tired. i'm tired of the world. i'm tired of myself. i'm committed to my obligations, to my students, to my wife, to my family. maybe they are the tensile wires propping me up nowadays. but there oftentimes doesn't seem to be any intrinsic interest in much of anything... also, if i do evince an interest in anything, it often seems accompanied by a kind of guilt... as though someone in the back of my head were saying, "why are you wasting your time?" believe me, it doesn't matter WHAT you do, or how JUSTIFIED you think your actions are... that guilt will always return to haunt you... a lot of times lately, i just try to lie down and almost sleep it off... because there's nothing you can do to reason with it.
*****
my grandmother passed away in 2009, so that means it's been about 11 years now. i've been thinking a lot about this sort of thing, about how (unconsciously) you motivate yourself by attempting to prove yourself in the eyes of an audience. oftentimes, it's people like my parents, or my former teachers, or my grandparents. but as that audience somehow dissipates and disappears, you're left with this doubly empty feeling. doubly empty, because you realize that such external attentions were the motivating factor, and not something more "intrinsic" or "true"; and because you realize that this person, or that person, was a part of the pantheon of gods that you sought judgment from... and that whatever you do, they won't even see it any more. so what's the point? i don't care what most (99%) of mortals think. i wanted to impress YOU. and you're not even around to see it any more... i wanted to make YOU happy, and you've been gone so long...
i'm reminded of soul asylum lyrics:
"and you can't believe in yourself.
you can't believe in anyone else.
so why sit and wait for the new world
to begin?"
why do anything? why do anything for anybody?
i try to understand this, not in a pessimistic negative way... rather, i try to use this sort of statement to purify my intentions. i like to think, or in my idealized mind, i feel that: art is blind. it is a pure expression of some truth... but i'm a realist nowadays, and i also understand that i live in the real world, and tasks are not completed without some motivation, without some gas... and that's true of art as well. we don't do art unless we believe in an eye or an ear that would hear it. and we don't do art unless we've somehow fooled ourselves into believing in the beauty of what we're trying to say, hard as that is to do. it is a double obfuscation, art is... double, triple, etc., always with the goal of forgetting oneself...
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