Just got back from my run and am still in my sweaty shorts. Have a few things on my mind. The first is how so much frustration and ennui tends to come from being unable to speak one’s mind, to say what one truly feels, out of fear of persecution or some other form of social punishment. I think this is how some perversions and obsessions develop- not all, of course- I can only speak for myself.

What’s stopping us (me) from doing or saying anything we (I) like? I mean, I think I’m already opinionated enough as it is, and I can’t help but comment on almost everything I see. What is the point of such endless babble? I have a habit of actually reading aloud anything I see that is written in legible English- “Hock Seng Trading Company”, I’d point out while walking with my friends. Why? Why this endless thirst for words, why must something always be said? Isn’t the first rule “Speak only if you believe you can improve upon the silence”? I feel like I’m not enlightened enough to reach that stage, I am but a mere pupil, fumbling, fumbling, fumbling. I’m like a child that puts everything she sees into her mouth.

Is this sort of frustration the eternal condition of the wannabe artist? I don’t think so, I think we romanticize that. I’m sure we can struggle with expression in a comfortable manner- or rather, I’m sure we can embrace discomfort and grow to be comfortable with it. Or could it be said that, upon being used to discomfort, one should “try something else altogether”? Is that even possible? Can one truly be comfortable with discomfort? I  imagine not. I imagine people in war zones and emergency rooms will tell you that you get desensitized to the violence and madness, but there is always something around the corner that will rip your guts out- and I think that’s the job of the artist, we’re  supposed to pursue that.

I suppose we get comfortable with that role, that our role is to pursue discomfort and do battle with it- we can embrace that role, and that allows us to be “discomforted” in full when the time comes. We all yearn to weep, to be overwhelmed… I suppose that is what
religious folk have God for. Even scientists need to have faith in the process that they have rigorously tested- the scientific method has worked for everything so far, yes, and we can believe that it will continue to work, but it takes an element of faith to believe that I, as a human being in the pursuit of any sort of inquiry, might have anything at all to contribute to our species’ collective knowledge, to our well being.

Sometimes I think I like to talk about art more than I like actually creating art, lol! But I think if I dig a little deeper into that I’ll find that it’s untrue, I like to talk about art because partially I have this delusion that talking about art helps you make better art… I’m increasingly being persuaded by the idea that this is untrue, and that the best way to make better art is to make shitty art. If you’re making stuff, then talking about it might help, but first and foremost it is important to be making stuff. If you’re not making stuff, all the talking in the world won’t help you. (Yes, I am oddly self-aware of how this begins to get a little blurry and hazy if talking IS your art, or in this case, writing- so if you make art about making art, is it still art? Everything is art! And nothing. And eventually you just give up and do and say what you believe matters.)

Speaking of art- now that we’re talking about it for some reason- I honestly do believe that genuine, real art is being created on the internet everyday. There’s a lot of art happening every day on Quora, and Reddit. Art is connection, art is magic, art is when people find themselves challenged and provoked, when we think and learn and breathe a little deeper. Art is when we break past the veneer and shields that we put up to keep ourselves from ourselves, and we discover that we are not discrete we are continuum. Art is wit and conversation and it should be alive. Museums are cemeteries-  it’s where art goes to die, preserved in a grotesque reaper-form. Art shouldn’t be static, it should be alive, it should be part of conversations, it should provoke and inspire us daily, at a human level, on the ground.

Actually I think that’s all I have to say at this point. 800 words on this particular word vomit. I went over 1,600 and 2,000 on a couple of posts so I should still hit my arbitrary 1,000,000 word target at the end of it all… #boliao