 |
|
Journal Entry
March 2004
I have an idea. I will paint my shoes. They are getting pretty stinky. The idea is to paint the shoes and then get rid of them.
I set up the shoes to paint them. But then I think, no, this is stupid. There is nothing significant about these shoes. There is nothing funny about them. There is no reason why they should be painted. There is not enough meaning there for me to be wasting my time painting these shoes. This is what I think to myself.
Now I think how sad a state of affairs it is in my life and the world that I am writing this at 2 AM on a Saturday morning. My wife is in our bed alone. A few Americans are doing all they can to fuck the rest of us in the world. One of them is sleeping well on Pennsylvania Avenue. I am in my studio debating whether or not to paint my stinky shoes.
All is not right.
Philosophy
So what do I have to say? Im feeling very self-contradictory. I feel like I know the problems. I know my skills and my shortcomings. I want to be ambitious. I want to make something great. But Im not sure I need the world to see it. I just need to know it. What do I want to say (with my work)? I want to say that I was here. I lived. I did good things. I had great times. I had hard times. I saw amazing things. I loved. I was loved. I love myself. Im not perfect. I dont need to be either. I want to say this is my life, here it is. I think I know some things that are good and some that are not. I want to say think about who you are and what you do. I need to do more and think less or at least think better. Im lucky. I know I am and maybe I need to say that too: that I am lucky and squandering it.
So what do we do? We are artists, philosophers, scientists, theoreticians. We try to make sense of the world, understand, create meaning. The world is complex. There is more operating than we can possibly understand or comprehend at one time. So we simplify and create systems and structures through which we may more clearly define this or that. We collect data, that is information, from the real world. We look for patterns. We map the data. We look for new correlations. Negative results are often more instructive than positive results. We know how things are by how they are not. As we get more specific we become ever more sure that, really, we dont have a clue. We will not find the answer. We will make informed generalizations that have exceptions and/or dont fit the reality they are meant to describe. I suppose thats my point, all we can do is describe the world and description is always inaccurate. Its either inaccurate because we lack the tools to collect the data or the language to articulate it. Or finally, because the data we collect does not reflect the whole of reality.
|
|
 |
