On falling apart

Life is falling apart.  Not to be dramatic.  chuckle chuckle.  the sun still seems to be shining but some invisible economy is crumbling.  bad guys are taking all the money for themselves and we're all losing our jobs.  but we have magic machines in our pockets which allow us to connect to anyone, anywhere, in an instant.  we can see other worlds instantly.  we can get on flying machines that actually take us anywhere in the world in a matter of hours.  life is a strange juxtaposition of what we feel and what we've heard is actually happening.  the magic that is the reality of our lives is lost compared to the ever-impending dark clouds of fear.

i am a part of this mess.  i am falling apart while trying to hold it together.  everything means everything and nothing.  i care so much that i don't care at all.  i want to run away from everything i know but i'm scared to death of starting over all over again.  i envy those friends who are settled, or at least more settled than i.  i envy their relationship security, their teamwork, their intimacy.  and yet i would feel entirely stifled and trapped in their position right now.  grad school is by definition a transitory space.  Here comes another huge transition since the one just two years ago, and when it's over i'll have no idea where i belong in the world or to whom i belong.  i wish i smoked because i think a cigarette would do me good.

Whenever i have fits of mental discomfort, i image i'm made of hard-boiled egg and slice myself in one of these.

  

Hi all,

I've got a relatively fun post for today.  My friend Paddytime sent me this questionnaire from 'Inside the Actor's Studio' with James Lipton.  It was actually pretty hard to think of answers.  Anyway, here goes.

What is your favorite word?  Design

What is your least favorite word? Moist

What turns you on?  A good vocabulary

What turns you off?  Macho-ness

What sound or noise do you love?  Summer wind rustling the leaves of deciduous trees

What sound or noise do you hate?  My alarm clock during childhood

What is your favorite curse word? Friggity frack

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Actress

What profession would you not like to do? Lawyer

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?  I'm glad to see you, but everyone gets in :)

The old man and the father gazelle

But, thank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able.

'I'll kill him though,' he said.  'In all his greatness and his glory.' Although it is unjust, he thought.  But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.

He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her...the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them.

But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars.  It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.

Besides, he thought, everything kills everything else in some way.  Fishing kills me exactly as it keeps me alive.

'Ay,' he said aloud.  There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood.

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I woke up at 5:30 this morning after a 24-hour trip back from Abu Dhabi.  One of our stops on the trip was a fishmarket.  I bought The Old Man and the Sea at the airport in Frankfurt on the way home.  I read it this morning as the sun came up.  These are some of my favorite quotations.  If you haven't read it you should.  More on Abu Dhabi to come.

Tuesday Haiku

Public radio morning

Sky spitting snowflakes

Wish you were holding my hand

Inspiration

I bought my first piece of signed art today. My fam was walking around Downtown Naples and happened upon the annual art fair. Most of the art was bad but the artists weren't talentless; they just made boring, insipid art. I guess one has to consider the audience - a bunch of wealthy old people probably don't want anything revolutionary hanging on their wall. Anyway, seeing all that stuff reminded me how much I like to make art and how I could make better art than a lot of that; art that people still might want to own.

This all tied in with this week's conversations between my brother and me. Rick's pretty knowledgeable on economics and unabashedly libertarian. He says the economic situation will force people to stop consuming and start conserving. Instead of throwing away a torn shirt you'll take it to a seamstress for example. He also thinks people will become entrepreneurs again. They'll lose their jobs and be forced to create products or services that fill a need. I've had some good ideas that I thought would make money before. But those ideas have never come to fruition because the risk required to realize them was too great. I wonder if getting pushed out of comfortable jobs will force people to wager what they wouldn't before. Perhaps the results will be innovative and fantastic.

Which brings me back to art. It's something I couldn't risk before and the pressure of it made me hate doing it. Now that I'm away from it, I realize I might have some talent, and I might have some good ideas. I bought that picture because it was the first one of the artist's that caught my eye. Michael Bryant is his name. He does the double exposures all in camera, so he's got no idea how they'll come out until he develops the film. I guess it just reminds me that life operates in strange cycles. Sometimes you think you're just going around the same circle all the time and nothing's going anywhere. Then all of a sudden you're someone new, and you're in some new place, and your whole life is different. But at the same time, whatever it is that makes you you is unchanged and you can't escape from it. Nor would you want to.

"plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose"

Hi everyone,

I don't have a transcendent topic for today so I'll just update you.  

1.  I think I won my bout with insomnia.  Two days in a row I've been able to sleep! Hurray.  It might be too soon to call it, but I'm pretty sure it's school/stress related.

2.  I'm going to Abu Dhabi for studio next semester.  Yep I'm pretty psyched.

3.  I don't know what I'm doing with my life. 

4.  I have a gay husband via common law.

5.  My family is getting together in Florida for Christmas and my bro is coming sans gf.  Word.

6. The future, and how my present choices are impacting that future, and how the future does or doesn't influence my present choices, scare me.

Making lists is illuminating.

Sorry for being euphemistic. 

<3 

krayon

Dear World,

If you haven't noticed, things are going pretty badly.  Crime is up in the U.S., terrorism is breaking out all over the world.  I'm writing to you to plead with you.  I'm writing to say we can do better than this.  We have to do better than this.  If we've learned anything from these past eight years, it's that we can't fight terrorism with guns and soldiers.  We can't fight terrorism with strategies or threats.  Terrorism is a tactic and what's defined as "terrorism" is subject to whoever is defining it.  Terrorism comes from hate.  And a lot of the time that hate is understandable.  People have been repressed, abused, and their basic humanity trampled. These injustices breed hate.  And hate leads to violence.  So far our strategy to fight this hate has been more hate.  More violence.  Apparently violence only leads to more violence.  Who knew?

We are very much like animals really.  Dogs bite when they've been abused and they're scared.  We do the same thing. We lash out when we feel this is our only chance to fight back and the world has hurt us enough that we think our cowardly way is justified.

So what I propose is pretty simple and cliche.  I propose peace and I propose love.  I think at our most basic level every human being prefers peace to war, and safety to fear.  We would rather be hugged than punched and we would rather laugh than cry.  Every mother would rather raise her child in a place where he is safe than a war zone where bullets are flying.  We are not such complex creatures really.  

Hate makes us forget what we are, or rather, what others are. Hate makes us forget the humanity in others.  Hate convinces us that they are less human or less deserving of life.  Hate makes us forget that they laugh and cry and have families and memories and souls.  Hate is a powerful, terrible thing.  Hate is the only thing that could convince terrorists to kill at least 125 people in India, or cause such civil unrest in Somalia.  

But we were not born creatures of hate.  Undoubtedly love has been and can continue to be more powerful than hate.  What if we could pause this mess and look each of these gunmen in the eye, ask them what they want, ask why they're doing what they're doing, tell them there's a better way, and that God loves them, and that they don't have to do this.  Maybe they'd keep shooting, maybe not.  I hope that if we could separate these killers from their group mentality they'd come to their senses.  I still believe the humanity in their eyes is the same as that in mine.  

Life isn't so black and white unfortunately.  I can't comprehend what could drive people to kill, but I'm sure there's some twisted logic and a chain of events behind it.  But I'd say any time hate drives us to do anything, it's wrong.  The result of injustice need not always be hate - instead we could strive for justice.  There's a difference between revenge and a longing to make things right.  Revenge is reactionary, forgiveness is revolutionary.

So what I propose is this and it starts with each of us.  What if every time someone pissed us off, cut us off, wronged, hurt, teased, or cheated us - what if we put ourselves in their shoes.  What if we said "Yeah that sucks, but they're just doing this because they've had a bad day or because their mom is in the hospital or they lost their job."  What if we began with forgiveness instead of hate.  What if we really put their predicaments over our own hurt pride?  I think Jesus was the only person who really pulled this off.  What's crazy is that before Jesus there was no forgiveness.  There was no getting something for nothing.  Every wrong had to be righted through penance and sacrifice.  But since he showed up, there's no need for revenge or reciprocation.  He's got it covered.  Now we're free to forgive.  And forgiveness can only come from love.  

So there we have it.  If we forgive and love others we're free to live our lives and work for peace.  All the good things are connected, and so are the bad things.  If we don't forgive then we can hate.  Hate makes us want revenge.  Hate convinces us that others aren't human so violence is ok.  But revenge never rights anything.  It just makes things more wrong.

This isn't really a solution for terrorism now.  I don't know how to stop that.  I don't know how to stop things on a global scale.  All I know is change starts with each of us, and love never fails.  So...what do you think world?  You want to do better?  Because I know I do.  I love you.

-k