Two Art Forms (Thoughts)

The cathartic experience of writing stands counterintuitively to the cathartic experience of music. Both art forms represent a holistic role in my life, my psyche and my "happiness." They are, for lack of any originality, the Ying and Yang of my creative existence. Within the continuation of the previous well worn metaphor and reference, both music and writing exist within themselves, the two dots representing the connection between not just the two mediums of creation but all. Music drives my writing. When I write I put on an album and let the emotion funnel through me and unto the page while the well penned phrase of an engaging work of literature drives me to pick my my "Ax" and express the concrete ideals found on the page into a more than conceptual idea through music. Ying and Yang. 

Music is a rejuvenating force that exudes a raw reality that delves deep within my "soul." When I pick up my instrument of choice I am preparing to be struck by a force of electrical magic that brings me to an upright position. My back straightens and my legs feel firm upon the ground. I am encompassed by a confidence which I have been told changes my outward appearance to all around me. I am no longer the shy intellectual filled with assured uncertainty but I am more comfortable with the words I utter, the body I possess and the world I see before me. I know my place when I interact with the grounding power of metal and/or nylon strings strapped unto a wooden and metal musical contraption. It seems odd that such an obtuse and unimposing man-made object can morph a human being as it has morphed not only myself but many others. That transformation becomes an addiction that remains despite it being unveiled before a mirrored reflection in a room or a stadium filled with countless human interactions. It remains with you, and it becomes a part of you, it is not a persona but another truth that is found within, and a truth we have learned to love. 

Writing is a draining and evacuating experience for it leeches from me all the energy and emotion that I possess unto the page. I bleed upon the pages in which I unveil myself. When I hunch over my computer my body becomes frail and unnoticeable as my head slowly lowers closer to the screen of my emotional misfortunate and malignancy. The act of writings feels aligned to that of treating an illness through the metamorphic and semi-impermanent restructuring through destruction of ones body and mind. As the horrific transformation occurs I become witness to the pathetic-ness of my humanity, the wretchedness that delves inside my devilish exterior. The wretchedness fights for control of my nihilistic and feeble consciousness through the tools of depression and the voiding of hopefulness. The only way to set myself free from the pain is to splatter the bloody truths of this daily battle unto the fields of paper that align the cybernetic fabric of our modern 21st century society. The battle fields will almost undoubtedly be lost within the interminable cyber-universe, floating among countless expressive counterparts, a deafening call on the worthlessness of our emotional endeavours. Ones scars are unveiled for all to see and you unveil a horrendous truth that on the surface appears unsalvageable but in reality unveils the powerful ability for human change and growth. Hope and salvation becomes a part of you, and remains with you until the day you have succeeded, or even more likely failed. Either way the transformation is valuable and without it, I would not be the man I am today. 

Silence (Thoughts)

Today I want to write about silence, but as is often the case recently, I am wilfully and abjectly unable to focus coherently. My stream of consciousness flows from argument to counter argument constantly refining and redefining my stance and the nuance of my argument. My thesis statement is simple, that as a society we have less of an appreciation of silence, yet as I try to define silence be through action or lack thereof, I realize my stance is logically and perhaps even artistically inane. Despite the ramblings and twirling of my rational brain my instinctual and "gut" quadrant of my brain is telling me I am on to something. I will delve into my personal relationship with sound, an individually subjective but profound interaction which has had obtuse magnitude on my life. 

I am first and foremost a musician. I try to uncover a poignancy in my writing that rings with the power of a well place harmony. I try to study my fields of study with the concentration of a well versed musical piece and I try to converse in a rhythm pleasant to the ears. I attempt to link music into all facets of my life. I hold weakness in one manner, silence. Music and sound exist from absence,"silence," a term I am appropriating loosely for in reality silence is a concept and never a reality. As a musician they say music is as much about the notes you fail to play as the notes you do. Tempo, timing, and punctuation are the tools of any great musician, conversationist, and provocateur. As such you can see my fascination with our everyday interaction with silence and its impact on society and individual lives. 

Today, as with many days, I listen to podcasts, music, videos, language, conversation, traffic … the list is endless for even now I enjoy the sound of scraping shoes on a tile floor. We are bombarded by sound so we filter, re-filter, enhance, concentrate and consider. Yet I think we have too much sound in our lives, or more importantly, we bombarded ourselves with to much sound for the purposes of enjoyment and stimulation. I am very much guilty of that sin. I am constantly listening to some form of stimulation in hopes to uncover some nugget of enjoyment which can justify an exclamation of eureka.  By doing so I am ignoring the one principle of sound most important, the importance of silence. Indeed it is the lack of stimulation between the resounding stimulations I endure that are most important. The slow consideration of a well sounded point, note, word or phrase is as equally important as the the emitted sound itself. How often do we forget the basic principles that exist within all of our concepts, from the most minute to the largest. Sound and silence are intertwined within themselves as life and death. One does not exist without the other and more importantly one is not as profound and beautiful without the other. We neglect when we forget this relationship.

I cannot say that I will be able to use this line of thinking to introduce greater "silence" into my life for it is difficult. We are wired to search, interact, and explore. Our curiosity has driven our species to some incredible heights yet I fear not our progression but out litter. We will continue down the road towards progress and continue to attain amazing feats of ingenuity along the way, but with a lack of silence we shall also litter the roads with unrealized potential and realizations. Epiphanies shall lay dormant upon the rails of yesterdays experiences and that to me is a tragedy of silent and un-echoed proportions.  

The Changing Nature Of Social Media (Thoughts)

Social media has changed how we, as a society, interact with each other. There are numerous debates on how social media should be used properly, safely, and in a manner which would insure that our lives are enriched. In a perfect world the above goals would be easily attainable and more importantly be implement quickly and efficiently. Sadly our utopian goals are rarely the reality. What makes social media so difficult to adapt to is its ability and necessity to mutate exponentially. For every new tool that is created and appropriated by the social consciousness of the online society there appears to be two similar tools with slight differing nuances, for every Instragram there is a Pinterest and Snapchat, social platforms that hold similar ideas but offer nuanced specifications that allow the app, website, or idea to live within its own cybernetic niche. Everyday the push for greater individualization is driving the software market and changing the face of social media and the online experience. The market is changing faster than we can adapt. 

I will outline my own recent personal experience with the changing phenomenon that is social media. A few weeks ago a personally close friend was jumped and physically beaten for reasons that remain unimportant. My friend was forced to go to the hospital and had to receive numerous stitches to close a substantial gash that existed above his right eyebrow. On the funnier side he now looks a little more like Harry Potter (perhaps it will help him in his romantic endeavours). This is similar to what occurred to myself a handful of years ago (three years ago to be exact) in which I was also beaten up and was forced to receive stitched for a major wound to my bottom lip. There seems to exist only minimal differences between our nefarious experiences, except how we unveiled our wounds to our immediate peers and counterparts. I used to medium of texting and Facebook to inform my immediate social group of what had occurred to me while my friend used the medium of Snapchat, in which one sends a purposefully fleeting and ephemeral picture which than disappears after a set time and can never be seen again. 

So why is this important? Because how we communicated a similar experience was vitally different within a short period of time. Just as importantly we both exist within the same age bracket and social environment. We are both tackling the same major in political science, we both come from middle class families and are both similar in personality and passions. We are a perfect example of a most similar case study, two similar people who have a similar experience but react differently. 

So why did we react differently? clearly it is because we had access to different tools. That is obvious, but what makes it even more interesting is that in a very short period of time, barely 3 years, we had access to intrinsically unique tools. It is undeniable that the landscape of social media has mutated, has adapted, and has modified to changing needs. I received the Snapchat from my friend at 4 in the morning, allowing me to give him sympathetic immediacy that I was unable to enjoy. I had to wait hours before being gifted with the gift of comfortable reassurance from a respected peer or authority figure. My friend was able to access such needs, and with greater visual context, quicker and more frequently. Yet, does that mean we should have such social accessibility? The problem is that when we are tackling with the above issue the technology will become socially obsolete and replaced. Welcome to the twenty first century. 

A Discussion Of the Short Narrative (Thoughts)

What can be said about the short narrative, no matter the form? As a writer I live within the confinements of the short narrative, be it poetry, short stories, short essays, or even my to-often Facebook status updates. Indeed the world I am confined within, the world I have grown in many respects to abhor, has given rise to my own appreciation of the short narrative form. I am a creation of my environment no matter how hard I attempt to fight it. I live my literary potential within the power of two doubled spaced pages.  

Recently Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Literature, cited as a "master of the contemporary short story." The short narrative form, through never maligned and highly respected, rarely gets the respect it deserves. It doesn't hold the magical artistic appeal of the "Great" all encompassing novel. Such novels, be it War and Peace or the the more modern Infinite Jest, hold a grandeur on the minds of writers and readers alike. Lovers of literature wish to delve and tackle the magnum opus for it promises greatness, perhaps a shrivel of truth that we can keep warm under our pillows and hold till we breath our last breath and utter our last unmemorable utterance. Yet the short narrative form has proven to become increasingly useful and meaningful, holding as many "truths" as the magnum opus we all wish to read and/or write. 

The power and struggle of the short narrative is the need to speak with as little as possible, to say great things with the minimalism of a deep seeded epiphany. The world has began to ask for this tiny miracle more often than ever before. With a world of information, I site exhibit A the internet, there seems to be a greater need for a reductionist soul, someone able to encompass an entire thought in a sentence; some are more than able to expound upon such wit. The comedians that control and bring insight to Twitter, the world of 140 characters (what an absurd length for such as myself), have shown they can bring forth and encapsulate the absurdities and fallacious elements of humanity with the freedom and bravery (perhaps stupidity) of an iconoclastic Jester. So why are we still clinging to that magnum opus, does it hang upon our neck like an albatross cursing us as it did the ancient mariner?

Perhaps not. I cannot say that I have the focus of my predecessors, lord knows I am unable to focus on my own writing past two pages, as I have mentioned before, but does that mean that my entire generation is cursed as I? With the attention and memory span of a goldfish but the intelligence and material resources of all past generations combined? When the "written word" was first invented the Greeks debated on the price of such a tool, as simple as it may seem to us, and they worried that memory, a tool used to tell great and all encompassing stories such as the Iliad, would be lost and what would that mean for humanity? The debaters and maligners of writing proved prophetic for we do not possess such memorial powers but we have gained the ability to understand and comprehend more conceptual realities than ever before, drowning in our present digital sea while often ignoring the perils of "surfing" the network of seemingly infinite websites overflowing with information and opinions at our fingertips. 

Yet our humanity has not changed, the great magnum opus was respected (though for them it was the epic poem), and the short narrative form was left at the wayside, known to be beautiful, profound, and sadly un-idealized and under utilized. That doesn't change though that to say so much without seeming cumbersome or to say so little without seemings uninspired are the struggles that every writer, musician, poet, painter, artist and conveyer of reality share. They share in the struggle if not in the majesty. 

What Path Would You Choose?

White noise. All I hear is white noise from white voices who wear white shirts and shoes and who drink white wine from white chalices. White. Its post-translucent qualities add a cold nuance to the perpetually disinfected and hygienic lives I am caught in. White. All my friends are white and all my enemies are white. Everything is write, monochromatic. When I wake and open my eyes from the only darkness I am able to envision I feel the sharp pain of sharpness behind my eyeballs when gazing upon the clearness of white that perpetually surounds me. How long have I been here? How long will I stay? Did I come here on my accord? All unanswerable questions. I know we could find some form of unit to expound on the idea of time but when units can be infinitely divided or expanded it doesn't mean a fucking thing, I don't know how to answer any of my questions. 

Today is like any other day. I wake and remove myself from clean and crisp bed sheets which are barely tussled by my pre-comatose sleep. I wear equally clean and crisp bed attire, looking as if I am another piece of matching furniture in my room. If I stood infinitely still I would slowly meld into the background. I could picture a family walking through my home, seeing if they wished to purchase the medium sized condo, and failing to notice the young man standing perfectly still. Perhaps a lamp shade on my head would help complete the scene. 

I would carefully walk to my bathroom and turn on the tap and wash my face with the translucent water which escapes in a less than impressive torrent of streaming sound. From there I would leave my room into my kitchen and ingest my white plain eggs on white bread toast and perhaps, if I am feeling adventurous and in need of some stimulation, watch some television. Perhaps I would watch the news in order to remind myself how un-terrible my life was. The perpetual boredom was a firm and strong ideal compared to the terribleness of war, famine and disease. 

My mouth would move mechanically as I ate my barely organic food. The crunch of bread unsurprisingly acted as the soul human sound in the home, emitting a sadness which can only be possible when human actions are done robotically. Then a break would emerge from the pathetic existence when I would take part in the only pleasure of the morning, the yolk of my egg. The yellowness which emitted my light would break from its thin and frail mould and spill forth. I would greedily suck on the edge of the egg making sure every aspect of that yellow orgasm enters my oral cavity and allows a shiver of palette encompassing joy leak through my frigid and calculated body. The warmth of it would set me free for a few moments and I would close my eyes, once again incapsulated by the beautiful colourlessness of darkness and let the only instance of joy cling for as long as is humanly needed. Than the moment would end and I would clean my single plate, wipe down the counter, and clean myself in white, brush my teeth in white and lick my lips to whiteness. 

I am a 20 to 30 white male, I am intelligent and I am socially awkward. I am the most monstrous demographic in the world, the most likely to be a serial killer and numerous other horrifying characters in the world. I am also incredibly pathetic and meticulously structured in my existence. I have two paths laid before me, the coldness of my white existence or the path towards monstrous anonymity. What path would you ultimately choose?  

The Place I call Home (A Poem)

The Place I call Home 

Neon glow of a street lamp reflecting on the damp pavement 

Cars driving by late at night breaking the silent restless air 

Clicking heels exasperating the emptiness and darkness

Windows lit by dull florescent bulbs hanging aimlessly 

This is where I call home and this is where I find my life 

dawn hints on the horizon a future date filled with hopes 

Only to be regained by the grips of dusk once again 

The cold rain falls upon the faces of sinned and sinner

Transgressions meaning little to ridged and stoned lives 

The paint peeling off age worn walls covered in scratches 

Sparse furniture dotting a glowing coffin of an apartment

Cold wooden floors covered in splintered ragged flaws 

They seem to symbolize my simplistically docile existence   

Loud appliances initiate a space of sound among shy reality 

Humming angrily as if to protest the squalor that permeates

Each corner a home for shadows and other vague concepts 

A dripping sink adding rhythm among a patternless orchestra 

Raise ones head and you can see the spotted stains above 

telling a story willing to evoke bitter and mirthless laughter  

Cracks spidering across an endless sea of greying white paint

Reminiscent of the worn and aged skin of a toiling farmer 

The window glares as light slowly scatters through stained glass

Images of cultists taking their lives within such light reels  

Slightly blurred images and a rocking unsteady camcorder

Catching the final moments of mentally deranged beings 

The moon shines mercilessly upon the reflective street below 

Its not that I think I can escape the reality I have set upon 

Its all about perspective and deeply intwined imagination 

Within a shadowy and ghostly place I still call my home 

  

  

     

Words (Thoughts)

The power and the meaninglessness of words perfectly epitomizes the contradictory nature of all human constructs. I attempt to use my knowledge and artistic sensibilities to build a structure of words which can convey abstract ideals into concrete creations within you. I have a friend who is struggling with internal and external misfortunes and I try desperately to use my words to help ease her struggle. The poor truth of geography we share has forced me to hold unto the power of my words to affect her life in a positive manner ya bish? But no, she doesn't understand for the power I am trying to convey through the wonders of a shrinking and continuously globalized world lies within herself and not within myself. I am attempting to pro-ject words that bring forth great emotions within me to repeat the feat within her, I am attempting to universalize a subjective truth through the hope of convincing her that her subjective truth is also my own, such minimizing and retracting the power of our individuality.

There is undoubtedly overlap that will occur. The power of art is its ability to burrow deep within its receiver, unearthing great truths that we had not realized existed. At the moment I am listening to a piece by Kendrick Lamar called Money Trees, a song that takes a hard and constructive look at the gang banging culture that exists within L.A. and other major North American metropolises, truths that occur because of racist economics and "the weight of history"; the term has just procured a few chuckles from myself, the context for which is completely subjective and plagiaristic in nature. What I am trying to say is that I am a white middle class male who by the very essence of his birthing was given a life in which I am free of all the turmoil that a black North American man such as kendrick has faced. Yet, despite the vast chasm between our social, economic, and racial differences I can relate to him. I can take in the power of his words and find a deep seeded emotion which we both share and I am able to let the flow of his ebonic lyrics flow through my soul and conscious mind. We share a basic humanity and a basic language (to an extent).

So I hope, beg, and perhaps pray that the power that kendrick has with words can also be the power I have with words, that I am able to dig deep within the mind and feelings of my friend(s) with the words I am unleashing through the unsubstantiated energies of my mind, fingers, and the social media we have all been dissolved within; that I am able to connect rather than redirect, that I am able to convey rather than refrain and that I am gifted enough to define rather than remind the realities we hold inside ourselves.