Dictionaries, or I don't believe in art for art's sake.

You know, I don't have a lot of practice in the writing of love letters, especially to inanimate objects. Definitely not up to the level of Hawksley Workman's ode to paper "Claire Fontaine", which is a great song made even greater by the fact that it's about paper, but really not, you know how these things work. And anyways, I'm definitely not the gal to write love letters about paper, because paper and I have a rather long and unfortunate history of being at odds with one another. As in, I stare at blank paper and wait for something to happen, but it rarely does.

As well, I'm terrible at drawing, the point of translation between what I see in my head and what I put down on paper is missing at least three volumes of its dictionary. That doesn't mean I don't have the impetus to draw, though I tend to stick to crayons and swirly lines.

I've been thinking about pottery lately. Something to keep my hands busy that has numerous different stages. Or making clay and paper mache masks/ random art pieces again. I like the action of forming with my hands, then paper mache-ing, and then taking out the clay, and then painting. Not big artistic dreams fueled by distinctively intelligent conceptual ideas, but just letting go of making a product for someone else, and just enjoying spending time creating something, not worry about making the most meaningful and well received piece of art ever.

Because that's one of my major struggles with art and the action and motions of creating: I always feel as though I have to be making art to change the world, art that has so much meaning that it can barely be contained within the form that it is presented in. Otherwise, I see no point in making art. I'm not interested in making art for art's sake. I don't believe in devotion to " the craft", whatever form it takes, just to forward that form of art. If it doesn't have human repercussions, emotional and intellectual, tangible repercussions ( and I consider spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical health to be included in the tangible repercussion category) then I'm not interested. It seems impossible for something to be stunningly beautiful, but vapid at the same time.

Interesting, because I've had my work critiqued as being " beautiful but meaningless" before. Which, if someone is looking to really stab me in the not so hard heart, "meaningless" is about the best insult to strike me with. It's up there with heartless, cruel, uncaring, and selfish. Meaningless.

I struggle every moment of every day with meaning, and my need for meaning. If people have seen my work or even myself as meaningless, it's because I've spent so long attempting to fulfill someone else's idea of meaning, and so my attempt at meaning reads as relatively hollow, because it doesn't resonate truly.

I need to resonate within myself, with everything I think or do. Not be a perfect something else.

I am not vapid. Crazy and overwhelming maybe, but not vapid.

And I'm not a philosopher. Just because I can figure out something in my head, or make it make logical, rational sense on paper ( which I can rarely do anyways), doesn't mean I'm satisfied. In fact, if I can't put thought into action then I often feel as if it is pointless to even spend too much time with that particular length of thought. I can easily out think myself, until my brain is running in fearful circles, convinced of every horrible potential that could ever occur.

Which is supposed to be solved by more thinking, by outsmarting my own brain into disproving all of my negative beliefs. I know, a vast reduction of CBT, but that's how I think of it. Thing is, every negative thing, every fearful thing I can think of could potentially happen...this is where I get all tripped up-how is it possible to look at the world, and not be afraid.

How is it possible to even wake up in the morning and mot just roll over and go back to sleep because there's nothing to get up for when everything horrible just seems to be beating against your skin, barely held out by thinly, single paned window glass. When anytime a person moves it seems as though all she does is create excess waste that can't be disposed of, can't eat breakfast without destroying half the world, can't go to work and earn a living without causing something or someone somewhere to be in some kind of agony. How is it possible to exist when it seems as though your existence is predicated upon someone else's pain.

And yes, I know it's not entirely my fault, and I'm not responsible for changing everything, not is it possible for me to. I didn't create the system, but I do choose whether or not to continue it. Though I've spent my entire life knowing, deep in my gut, how wrong so much of what we do is, not taking part has always been to scary to fully commit myself to. Being even more of a social pariah than I've already been. A person is so much more vulnerable when they find themselves on the outside of a community, particularly a massive, emotionally and intellectually brainwashed one.

I have to believe that other people are driven by the same fears, and act out of the same seeminly impotent vulnerability, because that's the only way the world makes sense. I can handle the fact that people are scared and confused, and that their thought and behaviours stem from this, whereas I can't handle the though that people live their lives unhappily, and make other people unhappy on purpose.

If people weren't scared and fearful and vulnerable, why would they spend their entire lives devoting themselves to meaningless action that they loathe?