Who ever said that age is just a state of mind and you can be young as you want to be was clearly never middle-aged. The subtle betrayals of the body that accumulate daily turn into a kind of constant numbness. Add a bit of good old male stubbornness to the mix and I think you naturally turn into a curmudgeon. I’ve been trying to content myself with my tiredness lately and try to find a way of not resenting my physical condition as much as I do. What’s worse is that an accumulation of aches and pains along with all around annoyance at everyone and everything adds to my depression making it that much more difficult to manage.
I’ve been battling this feeling of losing time a lot lately. I’ve spoken about it a few times in blogs but there’s an acceleration happening now. I respond with growing frustration at some often tough relationships with friends with snappiness and irritation that is often undeserved. I also plod away at my meaningless day job – a job I intentionally took because it wouldn’t for-the-most-part interfere with my art – as if my employers were somehow responsible for my ennui. Time-suck errands or activities that steal productivity away from creating, like going to the doctor, buying groceries, attending birthday celebrations, or getting a haircut, I often regard as unbearable burdens. Even sex, usually a happy go-to that usually relieve stress, has falling short with me because it reminds me often about how I don’t have time for a partner. Really I feel like I’ve just become a spoiled snot, though I do try to keep it all in perspective and appreciate the good fortune I have in being alive, and also to be a gainfully-employed artist with many good and dear friends.
With that all said, I try to jealously guard my time, and enter into most conversations only paying half attention to what’s being said to me. I constantly list off things to do, projects to plan, etc. I think it’s hard to explain to non-artists how divided we can get. I think it’s strange to most to be speaking with a person and knowing somehow that you and what you are saying is the furthest thing from their minds but these no anger or animus involved on the part of the artist doing the daydreaming. We’re just in that in-between space in our heads most of the time is all.
There’s this thing called a muon. It’s an interesting particle that has some very strange properties which suggest forces in the cosmos lay just outside of our current perceptibility. The oddities of this particular particle involves its weight in relation to electrons and suggest the existence of other particles which in turn might unify Einstein’s Theory of Relativity with Quantum mechanics. I recently learned of this mystery from a YouTube PBS channel I frequently watch called Space Time which I highly recommend. I am no physicist by any means but I find these discoveries fascinating. That a thing can be present but not and also exist in relationship with other scarcely-perceptible probably-interdimensional particles so speaks to me about the way human perception happens.
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but life often feels like a dream, and the passing of time and the way memory works makes me feel like I’m constantly experiencing echoes of an event. Reality only exists once it’s measured according Erwin Schrödinger’s thought experiment, and until a measurement happens multiple realities can occur . Maybe that exhaustion we feel as we get older is like anchor particles from that other dimension pulling us into another reality where our consciousness can roam free with a disregard to the constraints of time, and free to experience all things at once in complete unburdened tranquility. If that’s the case, it would bring new meaning to the phrase rest in peace.
I’ve been on a wild musical journey over the last month or so since my last posting. I feel like my musical moods have traversed every genera there is at least once. But the most consistent thing I’ve been listening to is the late great MF Doom. I’ve liked him since before I knew who he really was back in the late 90’s. I’ve been playing “One Beer” and “Gazillion Ear” over and over again on Pandora. I really think he was under-recognized in hip-hop, but I get why his layered dense pun-ladled style might be difficult to mass market. I just love artists who are unafraid to add layers upon layers to their works so that their art resemble the complex world we inhabit
The other hip hop misfit I’ve been listening to lately is Tylor the Creator and his new CD “Call Me If You Get Lost”. This record feels like one long track. It’s the kind of grand design arch building record you don’t see a lot in music today. It’s actually hard to choose an individual track to recommend off of it but if I had to choose I think I’d choose “Juggernaut” Here three YouTube videos of these tracks.
I’ve set up an extremely ambitious painting program this summer that will surely take me well into the fall. I set the goal to finish 10 pieces by Labor Day. I think if I can get about 6 of them finished I’ll say its was a successful program. I’m pretty excited to have begun these works because most of them have been in development or were in my head for a couple years. Its interesting to see an idea come into being. Usually by time I get around to painting something the fire driving the idea has cooled down some. In a way I like this timing because it requires me to reassess priorities and helps me be a little more strategic with my output. A colleague of mine once said “You are the factory”. I’ve mentioned this before and the simple phrase still resonates with me. Like a factory I produce, but also like a factory I have to respond to the market place and to the unforeseen. I’d like to delve into some of these new pieces I’m working on in future post. Until then do be well.
Anthony Smith Jr. 