Reflections.

I need to gather everything I've written on every blog site I've made over the past 8 or so years and find all the poems and such... they're all dated, they're all printed or saved somewhere.... at least i hope. And those diaries from when I was 9, yeah, those are probably gone. I distinctly remember throwing one away, which is entirely too bad. But it's nice, it's like a journal, sort of. I can never keep an actual journal on a regular basis, my life is just too busy and it's too confining to try to do so. But I've written stuff, in essence, on the corners of napkins all my life. What I need is a good month to just compile it all. But, story of my life, right? If only I could do that with everything, have the time to get it together all neat and tidy and then go from there. But that's just not how my life is.

I could spend half of my time writing about the other half, and I still wouldn't write half of what I wanted to or needed to. That's the craziness of the human brain... mind... a sense of self... the ability to reflect to the point of being able to sit in a room completely still forever and you'd never run out of things to think about, truly. You might die from lack of companionship (because honestly I believe human interaction is vital to life) but if you could keep your spirits up somehow, though possibilities are endless. You could create anything and everything, you could go anywhere in your mind and indulge and hate and love and cry and bore yourself incessantly and thrill yourself immensely just sitting there...

I think this might be what Ann's been talking about. She said if she locked us in our bare, blank, boring, white walled, dirty studio for a week with only our camera, we would come up with compelling photographs. I know she's right. But that doesn't stop the frustration that comes with being an artist, the constant attempts at communication... that's the essence of art, and you'll never say exactly what you mean, because it is impossible, which links back to the fact that possibilities are endless. No moment in time is the same as any other and no moment you remember that movement in time will be the same as any other memory of that moment nor will it be the same as someone else's idea about it or their changing ideas with time. You always reflect on things dependent on now, and now is so fluid it's insane. I mean, consider the fact that by the time you've registered "now" now has passed. And I don't simply mean in reflection of now, I mean physically in your body, by the time your senses have sent a signal to your brain and your brain has registered what you're sensing, it has been a fraction of a second, and the moment that caused the signal to be sent is over. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I believe we live more in the past than in the future, even though it may seem like we're more concerned with what will be happening next, which is very true. But we can only deal with the present in terms of what we already know. It's impossible to do it otherwise. Sure, we work toward what will happen next, but the classic "we carry baggage" is such a good way to put it. Every step forward is working with what's happened already. The subconscious, a crazy mysterious place.

Freud. He gets on my nerves. Just want to throw that out there. Now of course, I have introduced him as a subject and now he will be on your mind, which is inevitable. But I think he was incorrect in many ways. And he gets on my nerves. I'd prefer to now even have mentioned him because I feel it taints my thoughts with frustration, but to not mention it would be to deny that it's part of the whole discussion and stream of consciousness. That being said, I'm not going to go into why.

Of course of course, who's to say we're really real at all? That is the worst place for the mind to go of all. But it's so fascinating! More interesting, however, is purely thinking about the immensity of time and of the galaxy and of the universe and how really small we are, and then to go the other direction, things being made up of smaller and smaller things that all do so many complicated little dances with each other to create what happens... good god because they all create these thoughts and this typing and somehow this computer and screen and key board with letters and a language, not to mention I'm on the 12th floor of a brick building, etc. And then we speculate if any of it really exists! Wow.

The beauty of the world, you have to feel it. The beauty of life and of not knowing, you have to just trust it. Or don't trust it. But trusting it allows for this intense connection to the unknown, which is so exciting and absurd! To have a connection to the fact that you can never understand anything.... I wonder if that's, in a sense, buddhist enlightenment. Interesting?

To know something as indepthly as you can is so wonderful. Maybe because it's a comfort, a beginning to feel like you know some of the unknown. And indeed, you do, because you are you and you are part of all this, and you certainly understand something. I understand that releasing myself to a sense of calm in allowing the things that I can't control to happen, instead of fighting against something like time, or more trivial fights... gives me such a joy in knowing I am part of nature. By nature I don't literally mean leaves and trees and grass and birds and such, I mean whatever this is in us that we all inherently feel but conclude comes from something different. I think those that know it best are those that don't try to question where it comes from. Impossible, I know, and maybe presumptuous. But all I know is that Religion in trying to describe such a thing and giving reasons misses the core thing about it... it's too vast to even begin to comprehend, and even the best description I once got from a very religious friend was lacking this. He said that God is exactly what I'm talking about. He's not in human form because that's what he is, that's just a very tiny part of him, and we see him that way because that is what we understand. He also includes the earth and the galaxy and stars and universe and all of the ideas that are in our brains and parallel universes and the 5th dimension and the 5th dimension of the 5th dimension (and no, I don't mean the 25th dimension, I mean literally what I said) and all of those imbossible unfathomable things that the only thing we know about them is just that: impossible unfathomable. Infinity. It goes on to infinity. All of it in the same sort of... category? list?

This is the closest anyone has ever come to convincing me of religion. But it still fails to recognize that even the thought of thinking you understand that there is something out there that does all of this is truly impossible. Or. It's just semantics, as Mom put it. And we really are describing the same thing.

And yet. Religion has it's own set of issues that maybe the purest of the pure form of it wouldn't have. Maybe as such it would really be what I'm talking about.( And then they try to convince me to convert because they are trying to tell me that this is exactly it!) But there's no need to do it as such. Everyone has their own spirituality, as my Grama so wisely phrased it. And some non-religious people are by far the most spiritual. Everyone, however has it in them.

Are people born good, bad, neutral? In using the reason I've grown up with, I would have to say neutral. But in using what I feel in my gut, I would have to say good. Because what do I feel? I feel exactly that connection with people and I know we all have it... that we all feel this same thing and struggle to define it and come to terms with it. And I think the frustration, or maybe even more so the helplessness and fear of not having control, is what makes people "bad." That and harsh circumstances, of course. But where did it being, with the first who didn't have harsh circumstances and began the cycle? Ah, utopias. Entirely possible.

But anyway? Ah yes. Knowing something in depth, like photography. It feels good because it is a comfort, and procrastination comes from the fear of not understanding. Not understanding is scary! But we look at ourselves and wonder what's so scary about this? It's not necessarily exactly the thing we are trying to accomplish. Perhaps it is the lack of control we feel we have. Isn't life for many people just a struggle to feel a control over something? It all is so much easier with companions, which is why I brought that up earlier in terms of being isolated in a space with only your thoughts, Ultimately, you would go crazy! Because human interaction is so important and so wonderful! You wouldn't go crazy because humans are inherently bad and inherently have bad thoughts, we just feel so much more than we realize. We are so out of touch with the earth and the world and nature or God or whatever it is that's deep within us. We are so out of touch with it. Friendship brings us back closer to it. And I might venture to say that if this person isolated to their thoughts had a cat to keep them company all the while, they wouldn't be so bad. Or maybe even a tree. See, the difference between being isolated in a white walled cold room, and being "isolated" in nature. Nature is part of us. Without other humans, we'd still get along. Companionship is the key word, instead of human interaction.

Though of course, human interaction is quite nice.

So. What do I possibly take pictures of, if these are my reflections? I am immensely drawn to the surreal and the absurd, and yet the serene and the beautiful and the quite. These are not opposites, but they pull at each other. I am not an opposite of myself, but I have parts of my that are very strange next to each other. Something about the uneasy fascinates us, but we never want to get too close.

Do I want to create disturbing images? My immediate response is no, but my thoughtful response is, why yes, of course! Why so quick to say no? A lack of control, of understanding, of experience, and quite simply because uneasy makes us uneasy. But limits are not my aim, and why shouldn't I create a whole 'nother realm, a world onto itself? It no different than the world I've already created with my photographs, and there's no reason I can't do it. People will all have their own ideas about things, there own ways of looking at the world, and I don't really know what's so wrong with liking an image simply because you feel it in your gut. I guess I'm different in that I'm not trying to "succeed" in life in the way people mean by that. I am trying to feel it out. That's all. Just see what happens and enjoy it as I do. Enjoy doesn't even mean happiness, it means an interest, a searching, a fascination, a discovery. So again maybe presumptuous, but I'm not trying necessarily to be main stream. I want to connect with people for certain, (again, isn't art about communication?), but... not through the way this society has created this path "upwards" for us. It is impossible that way.

What other people think is certainly important, as I have stressed the necessity and importance of interactions. We don't exist as we are without the people around us and the people that have been around us and so on. We have this code in us that helps guide the way we interact as well... which is a whole 'nother ball game.

Oh stream of consciousness, I could go on forever...

Sitting here in this room with only my thoughts.

Existentialism. That is my fascination. The realm of toys that goes with that surrealist world, pocket watches, bowler hats, gears, monocles, steam engines, copper pipes, umbrellas, vests, etc. It was all already there in me, I already loved it. I just had to realize it (first by being introduced to what it was and then recognizing it in me), and now I am working to discover it.

So maybe my pictures should be about that. A reflection of the surrealist swirl of thoughts that are always at least in the background of every step I take through time. Maybe a reference to the surrealist thinkers that have come before me. Maybe I can search to find my own way of defining it, of explaining what I mean, of communicating.

Searching. That is what an artist does. Maybe I'm more of a photographer than I even thought or realized.