The Type of Artist I Want to Be

Been digging around my hard drive looking for another piece when I found this. The document said it was written on April the 20th of this year. :D

I wish to join in the ranks of great artists whose work expressed their unique individuality, their burning core of creation. Human beings who accepted their authentic vision of beauty come what may. Ruin, or late acclaim or even madness might follow, but I know this; that the voice that compels me to write, compels me to speak, my mind's eye that sees the visions of worlds unknown, those are mine and mine alone. Worlds of beauty and horror to visit and terrify every night, and day dreams that are more real to me than anything I could ever share with anyone. They are mine and mine alone, and the trill of their exploration, the trill of crafting them into words, pictures, voices, thoughts cannot be shared. They cannot be repeated. The ranks are few, and far between, diaries come close, but not always. There's that filter in between the writers and the reader, and the less of that coming the closer I get to my core.

I will write something to make one awaken instead of fall asleep. And see the day for once. To write another novel, another piece where the reader could close the story, feeling happy and fulfilled inside for having witness another perform the task that one essentially understood to be theirs to do. No I seek to jar those with half and eye open to fully witness, to stare upon the fire here, the shadow puppets, and see the light if you dare for yourself.

A sense of life...

Each moment becomes a moment to dream. Where I belong, my own oblivion. I need no one now, can have no one.

This training, this craftsmanship aids in the communication of it, but the beauty of the inner space of the creator is something only he can work on himself. It is the boat from within to without, the link, the communication, but it will not replace a void, a cheap imitator, or a dishonest hack. Those who spend their time singing others song be weary of forgetting your own. When the voice can no longer tell its own from the others, when its vessel would mold itself completely in idol worship of another, then creation is abandoned for ritual, a performance of something past and done.

Creation is active. I must know what I think. I must do what is rare to achieve what is rarer. The truth cannot set you free if you never speak it, or speak it without honesty.

And if the blood falls in between my fingers, to disfigure either of us, I know that it is only an eye on the world that it ever was. You could learn to love a monster. But you must learn to love whatever it is you do first.

Small platitudes. Performance is the order of the day, achieving a sort of 'realism'. It's always a realism never real. A world where you're taught to smile in politeness, smile to hide anger, smile in the face of death, to smile when you don't feel like it so others won't be upset, to smile instead of yawn, to smile at our own ignorance. What then does a smile actually look like? We're taught to act, but not to be. We're told to be free, but never shown. We're made to fear, and feel ashamed when we are.

This utter lie the swallowing of that I weep for. Tricked, lied, and rewarded to act and not cognizant of their hollowness, I see the void that children become. It's ever sad, and constantly said. Children learn ever so well. To learn instead of to grow. At last we are here a spoon fed society. Unable to grow, but constantly willing to learn, to adapt. Unable to live, but fearful of death.

In another life I might have been a serial killer, if I taught others worth killing. Now I wait for my moment, scheming, hoping.

Learning has robbed away the spirits of men. Where the majority subjugate themselves to rules never questioned. Marching in lock step towards individual dreams on hollow grounds. So lost, so trapped, and so unaware. Knowledge is there, but it is never free those whose themselves unfree.

Potential

To accept the heroic
and individual
in oneself.

To express
and experience the uniqueness
of this imagination to the edges
of its own possibility.

And to feel
the struggle and the strain
and the doubt.

Because I bring it on myself.

I bring it on myself.

How else can I own it?
How else can it belong to me?

The crimson seeds sown upon battlefields,
or trees now palisades
to keep the planters alive
were not sacrifices I needed to bear, to understand
How much a burden...
How much a strain...

Did you fight for freedom?

That there more kindness in the youth
who embraces sight
that the old can
no longer see

What a mess....

White clouds riding upon the winds,
may only give shape,
to the one that can see through
these voices that sing mimicry,
and be precious only to those that can paint
against blank skies.

I look upon the eyes of those that aren't my enemy
And quiet respect for the struggle they endure
I wish I could free them from the hands that have them chasing,
laurel leaves they already hold.

Though criminal as that may be,
the worse crime is to deny
thee, thee

I will make them see
I will make them see

There's nothing more precious
than the dying light that is
thee

Distractions in the Modern Age

I like Lacan's notion of the Real as being that which returns into place. If I could keep to that distinction between the real, and the unconscious then I would be a much more productive individual able to stand witness to a self-defeating delusion against a tide of unsavory self-hatred.

To be able to write with less distraction. Endless distraction is the reality of modern life, and unavoidable to get into the touch of what is going on inside this technological revolution spiraling into the generation. I can only hope to lessen the distraction enough to get to the core of my writing self. It is a showdown with Truth as I feel it that trickles out of these hands, and if the hands are stained with the blots of the the unsavory dribbling of my soul then so be it. Writing is possibly one of the most democratic art forms there are. This means that there is a lot of crap written all the time, which doesn't make any of it less true. A serial killer can write as much as a rapist, as much as an insurance salesman or arms-dealer.

In terms of distraction, checking email is worse than smoking half a pack of cigarettes. As long as one doesn't go for an extended cigarette break to chat with neighboring balconies, you can be sure to smoke it and get right back on the idea as it's hitting you in front of the screen, or notebook.

One's attitude can be as important as one's words. In this written universe, we can feel the futility of words to other mediums in everday life. We're constantly attempting to use words to 'convey' to 'denote' things like emotions, attitude, intentions, all the things which are so much or expressive and easily available as a human-being through other mediums like facial expressions, or the voice.

Words, words, words.

They rattle off in the mind like the sound of dice falling wherever they may. It's either luck, or some divine monkey on a type-writer keeping me going as I'm barely conscious in this drunken-commando haze. It's hazing, but I seem to do the best writing on the verges of passing out. There's something just so right about not being able to stand it any longer, and succumbing to slumber that makes the whole experience less than self-aggrandizement and murder at the same time.

Writing Early in the Mornings

There is something to be said about writing in the mornings. Surprisingly sleep came early last night towards the break of midnight, and I awoke to the early Chinese (I'm guessing from the way their language sounds, but most likely) joggers in the playground behind the house and of course my friends the rats. While I've thinned their population to say perhaps the last family in the house their complete extermination/removal/relocation has been elusive. They're now wise to my traps and I must change strategy (which gets me thinking why rats aren't symbols of cleverness like foxes; probably bad PR). Any suggestions?

    Unfortunately, the early sleep did not yield scribbable dreams. To me this is a night lost. From the dream comes my best work. What is better; waking up tired with ideas but unable to write, or waking up fresh without a idea to begin exploring, but able to write? Perhaps a schedule could be arranged to have both, yet I have a sinking feeling that one is cheating the other.

I finally feel in the right position to be able to discuss certain other books finished, and work on current projects. A nice beginning to another hopefully productive day.

Have we built a life complete for human existence? Have we even built a life sufficient and necessary for ourselves, our individuality?

I don't know why I don't just publish the blog posts the day that I write them. Perhaps I figured that I'll do some editing. Alas there is rarely time for that. The mind moves on, and you can never step in the same river twice. This was a couple of days ago. It's almost been raining every single night.

I don't know why but I seem to write better when there is a thunderstorm on the horizon. Perhaps the weather is appropriating my mood. Or perhaps the prospect of rain in this superheated city has cooled down my body temperature and thus my brain enough for a steady stream of coherence through the voltage storm between these ears. Whatever it is I should waste the feeling.

 

Reading a narrative fiction which wanders about and rambles on and on, if you do fall in love with the writer's voice then you're sold. It brings a lot of things into perspective with a coherence of vision that is much in lacking in this century of cut-off time. The pause button will be the motif of this generation. We're always in the middle, in between a thing and another while live grows more passive and passive each day. The spectacles are all around, and unbinding me, my thoughts, my dreams, and desire from the simulacra is puzzling. Constantly I am asking myself this: how did I become so fragmented? How did a life once whole, honest, and straight become so twisted in false dichotomies and complications? For my weapons I have my instincts, which in a pure past perspective has guided me better than future projections of failure and disaster of fear of instincts. For one, it has guided me to just the right books that I need to be reading now. And now that I'm reading them I begin to understand that what modern society had fundamentally broken was: life.

    I did not understand it fully at first when I read the Elementary Particles, but I got the sense at the end that the author had made us question the possibility of a human existence as we know it (or perhaps a humane existence) at the turn of the 21^st century. What do I mean by this? The characters showed fragmentary humans, attempting to find that whole. As if that whole could make their life more complete in a society which had categorized them, marked them, tagged them, and projected their futures all on a time line. All of them could be a statistic. That hollow feeling of fate closing upon the characters felt so inhuman and alien that one wanted to rebel against the character's impending fate. Yet, I the reader derived a satisfaction from witnessing the characters succumb to their fates. I judged it proper, and would have felt cheated if they didn't. That gave the writing a quality of verisimilitude which modern commercial writing so dearly lacks. The characters were driven into the pit of doom by their own hand, their own devices. Their fundamental flaws, despite all abstraction, lead them to their fall. They were not merely foil for the main character to chop away, shoot, or blast with a special effects explosion. There is a logic to them that elevated them from mere puppets on a puppet theater to living, breathing human-beings for moments, more real than social reality. For those of us that live in cities, walking down the glam street (or glam streets as the case may be) we do not live anymore in a human reality but in the belly of a machine. You can feel the edges of this machine on the outskirts, churning away, non-stop, but to be in the middle of it, to see each interaction as income, exchange, output, commodity fetish, etc. to see abstract rational economics conducted by a human hand, a human face, a human voice devalues that of the breathing man and adds to that of abstraction man. But the worst of all is the sense, when watching from the outside, that absolutely nothing of worth is going on in shopping. For the shoppie, dominated in minds, possibilities, dreams, the brain is kept alive on the static glow of remembered advertisements and TV screens. Pictures of products never touched never smelled, never taken in by other sense than the ears and the eyes become… real? The minor of ah-ah of witnessing the phasmagoria in the flesh. But I who does not watch TV, having only perceived this piece for the first time, know it is there, not knowing its qualities and its labels, not understanding why this or that design looks better than this or that see small, same looking bottles, and not understand the difference until I try them. Yet even when I try them there are just things… in others I see their lives have been taken over by the Thing. Everything needs to resolve itself around The Thing. All constructed human conflicts; belonging, lifestyle, choice of mate, presidents all revolve around the acquisition of The Thing. And if we are all just objects swirling around the phallic symbol of The Thing, the indeed the abstraction of it has taken over Life. Hence I finally understand the title of Minimum Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life.

    If life, an eventual abstract thing to come into existence can be said to be human then the definition of that, the asking of 'how' questions, and finally and importantly the limits of what constitutes human. A good definition should be; sufficient, and necessary. Therefore, what is the necessary for a life to be human? What sufficiently can we call a human life? These were the questions addressed.

    Have we built a life complete for human existence? Have we even built a life sufficient and necessary for ourselves, our individuality?

May 20-21

The first part is not spell-checked. It was simply written on the spur before passing out. Somehow I like it that way better. The second part is only moments ago. I'm either going to pass out again, or get back into veiling my ideas in their letter body bags.

--

Rage is boiling inside of me at what had happpened yesterday. I'm at a point right now where everything is coming together. I understand now that I'm gong to have to type with my eyes closed to get the world out. I see the visons of this inner world where the stories ring true, but I can't neglect to keep my eye out for this one. This one world this one where the moment can pass ou by just liethat. There's no inifinite time on a plane to be wsting waway getting drunk and hihgh and unreactive. There's been too long that I've just said to myself that I'll take antoehr drink then I'll do it, but then I don't I justkeep watching the next damn thing on TV trying to hide from what I have to do , but no more even if the desire for alcohol take me I'm giong to keep on writing, I'mg going to write no matter what the keep the images moving inside of thi callibir head of mine. I'm going to keep the whole lot from falling with my mind. I'm going to use this vison that I see the vison in the dream.s that come to be from night on to the next to keep guiding me towards the next revolution in rightiong. If I it isn't a revolutonfo or them it is a revolution for me, because I can feel what everyone shall being feeling that alineted from this sense of reality proud nad ostaligic, the mood and lthe listening, it's in the music in is in the underground... am I making the right choices, but I'm only the writing the novel that I can write right now in this moment . I'm only going to use what I know right now tot keep myelf going. I'm going to high speed the hell out of wriitng meocride crap, and keep heading toward the benveable goals. I know what I'm gong to hve to learn to type faster to keep with the flow of my thoughts into language. This lagnuage which spikes and thrills. I 'm wiriting electicity off from my head into my fingers.

2:23: AM Can't sleep. The rats are always knawing at the roof at 3 in the morning and it's too damn hot even with two fans on me. Since I can't sleep I decided to read some of Henry Miller's letters. Now here is a man who knew about making art by writing. Unfortunately I'm almost at the end of the book when I discovered where the injuries foretold in an earlier blue ink warned. The bastard had cut out and stolen most of the last chapters! He's so damn indecent as well to steal the pages after the letters have begun! I'm left hanging... and cursing the bastard who had the gall to call me motherfucker in his note! Whoever you are, I have to say I had been amused reading your note but I want those damn pages back and damn your scrap book or whatever you chicken shit! I can barely read your handwriting, and the sentiment was fine, until you had to insult me, carr.
Well on the bright side it got me back in the new office chair to write. Meditations upon the visions in the back of my eyelids. What is writing? The question simply popped into my mind as I finally got up to drink some water. What is writing? I could ask: What is art? But: What is writing? Is writing some sort of special medium, where working with the very basic tools of language we are sending straight bolts of telepathy hurling into the minds of others? And what constitutes good writing? I know commercial success appears to be what everyone around me is striving for. I'm wondering if we're simply a verbal puppeteer, dragging characters out of the closet to enact our private pains for another audience. What people want to read about are other people, doing human things. That is the sphere of fiction. We have the scientific language which leaves one bored to sleep, maintaining that detached 'objective' perspective. Yet what is 'good writing'? I'm clearly unresolved on the issue.
I dream of a style being variations on a theme. There is the main concept, and then the small parts. Yet to create something totally new, something original, I see that one has to work with the basic colors, the nuts and bolts of the craft. And yes, despite everything being so uncertain there is certainly a craft to doing this.

Brain Cell

You must catch the dream before it's all gone. It's all gone now. Damn it, it was so fresh just a minute ago.

I had a dream of soliders. Of being soliders in an enternal struggle. An ember, and ember what is that? Is that me

Everyline is me burning out another brain-cell.