592. Looking for Meaning in Creation

 

Or how I imposed this ‘holier than thou’ experience to art creation and how I decide to stand in relation to it as a point of self-expansion.

Continuing from the points I opened up yesterday and going straight into the point of ‘looking for meaning’. This also opened up through watching another film, this one by Carlos Reygadas called Post Tenebras Lux and after I watched it, I was also expecting some kind of life changing outcome or realization – just like I did with Paterson which I described yesterday, and I am usually not just conforming with having a ‘meh’ experience about things as if ‘I truly didn’t get anything out of it’ or as if ‘I can’t really learn anything about myself with it.’ I’ve learned that we can always gather something to learn from anything/anyone in our lives and I’ve been using certain kind of films to do just that.

So I decided to check out interviews with the director to know more about his ‘intent’ or ‘purpose’ with this movie, and it was actually quite refreshing to do so because he basically also assisted me to debunk my expectations and see beyond this ‘search for meaning and purpose’ or ‘giving a message with/through art.’ In this interview here he explains how he’s not a propagandist, he doesn’t have a ‘message to give’ in his films other than using the language that film is – as images and sound – and showing things that he likes, that he finds beautiful, places where he lives in and showing the simplicity of life – and that’s it.

Then I was able to again ‘rewind’ my experience through watching the film and basically seeing myself have that same ‘expectation’ of something suddenly happening that will ‘change the course of events’ – which surely, it does at some point – but most of the film is very slow, moment by moment depiction of life and normal people’s interactions, people that are not even actors and he essentially used his own house and kids to do the film, very simplistic kind of film that turns out as a nice thing to watch altogether. And so through listening to his explanation, I was able to realize more about this ‘urge’ to ‘find a meaning’ to everything, and within that realizing how much I have constantly sought this ‘meaning’ in life and to things to the point where I have ‘missed out’ on life itself as I described in my previous blog because of this desire to find ‘something greater than life’ in things – lol – which is impossible, because life just is, anything ‘greater’ is just a mindfuck, to be honest.

And this is how I came to see that my approach to art and doing art was basically coming from a mindfuck, a desire to create something ‘bigger than myself’ and that would ‘transcend me,’ that would ‘become a message to the world’ of something mystical or incomprehensible through words and… ah! and there I go, again to that one point where I essentially created my own mindfuck which I’ll explain for the sake of context and ‘refreshing’ my story to see how I ‘wired’ myself into this ‘conflict’ essentially, becoming the words that I speak.

After high school I wanted to study visual arts, the university I wanted was in ‘the big city’ and I essentially conformed with my second option at the time because you know ‘how will the youngest of the house leave at a tender age to the big-monster Mexico City?’ and so that’s what I did. I coursed a first year at the Literature and Linguistic faculty here in my home city’s university and to say the least I kept my finger on the same spot of ‘I want to create art, not study books’ – and my second option was of course writing my own stuff, but going to school for that didn’t make sense, and somehow going to school for arts made more sense lol, but that’s another story.

To sum it up, I created my own inner conflict in saying that I had enough of words, that I was sick of words, that I wanted to ‘part ways’ with words – lol – that there’s something ‘more to say’ through images and so yeah here quoting that point of ‘we become what we think’ and I eventually decided to quit literature school and apply to get to the National University to study visual arts in Mexico City – I got in, got the support, went there and walked it through. And while I was there during the first year I made this idea of myself being dissatisfied with ‘just words’ and how I wanted to create something MORE than just words which I then equated to creating pieces of art because that’s how I then ‘wired’ myself to think that it was somehow ‘more important’ or ‘greater than’ myself, lol.

Here the pattern then becomes clear how there had been this drive to do something ‘beyond me’ apparently within a desire of superiority, of magnificence, of grandeur, of big meanings and ‘deep’ stuff that could touch people’s inner-core and ‘change them forevermore’ lolol. Well, as funny as it may sound now to me, that was sort of my intent within studying art and turning it all into this very emotional, chaotic and drama-queen process that I walked in this ‘quest’ to find meaning in life through art, and that’s how I then got very deep into mysticism, religions, philosophy, new age writings, old traditions and anything I could find that would talk about this ‘greater nonsense’ than ourselves mortals on this Earth. To sum it up, I was trying to ‘find god’ in art and that whole ‘quest’ and ‘journey’ to ‘find it’ is what became this seemingly insatiable desire to ‘quench’ my desire to know the ultimate things, to ‘find the greater truth’ and for some reason I linked this to arts and god, but it is what it is.

It’s actually no different to how we go through our lives seeking a meaning, a purpose to our lives, and we don’t realize that they are all just concepts in our heads! Which then makes us inactive, passive ‘waiters’ for ‘life to happen’ instead of realizing we are the ones we have been waiting for and that we have to be the ones that decide to Create our lives and create such day to day purpose no matter how seemingly ‘irrelevant’ it is, we decide HOW we define things, and we decide if we trap and limit ourselves in our own definitions as well, entirely up to us, but all I can say is that we truly have to evolve from this ‘endless seeking and waiting’ for something ‘greater’ to happen to us, We Are It!

The point here is to remind myself of these bits of my story to debunk any current reminiscence of trying to ‘find’ or ‘create’ this ‘something’ bigger than life in arts, or wanting to create something ‘super deep’ and ‘super meaningful’ and that could ‘awaken people up’ through images, because that’s still existent as part of this old drive and ‘thirst’ that I associated with arts and creation as something that would be ‘transcending myself’ in some kind of mystical way… I was definitely on my way to essentially trip myself with my artwork into this godhood path… but fortunately one year into art school I found Desteni, and bam! the rest is history.

So that’s why this year when I decided to take on arts again as a full time activity, this kind of ‘desire to create meaningful stuff’ has come through again, to the point where I have limited myself so much in what I would do because of not wanting to be ‘superficial’ or ‘trivial’ in what I paint, which interestingly enough I have been challenging myself with doing, such as painting the kind of paintings that I had before judged as ‘decorative’ in nature and as such a ‘lower’ form of art, which of course is all again a definition, a judgment that I’ve been brainwashed with and so imposed to things mostly from the ‘education’ one gets in art school where you are apparently a ‘lower’ kind of ‘artisan’ if you paint stuff that people simply likes to have around for how pretty it looks.

Needless to say that these past months of being doing that kind of paintings I have faced my mind-ful and mouthful of judgments right on my face as I’ve shared before, where I have worked on stopping ‘dwelling’ on the image itself, the ‘judgments’ that I’d associate with painting something in particular, to in essence let go of how I had been taught to categorize the kind of painting I was doing and stick to seeing it as what it is, an image that I paint, and that’s it.

Man, it hasn’t been a walk in the park to be honest, and that’s how it’s been also very cool because I know that it’s all in my head! It’s just a bunch of concepts, ideas, theories, labels that I’ve associated with certain kinds of art measured in an apparent ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ scale that god knows who has decided to layout for some people to then identify with ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ forms of art.

And as I take a deep breath, I realize that it’s all knowledge and information that I can decide to simply let go of in the moment when I am painting something and stop comparing the image or ‘what I am painting’ to any piece of information/knowledge that I’ve read or heard before and what I’ve been doing instead is precisely getting to establish a quiet presence while painting, which is stopping the judgments around ‘the final picture’ and ‘how it would be categorized/considered in the art world’ or how ‘others would categorize it’ and instead just focus on doing it the best way that I can.

I’ve also realized how in doing things that are out of my comfort zone, I’ve been able to rather focus on the practicality of making something that turns out well in and of itself, where I am challenged in terms of technique and skills and pushing myself to develop more patience at times with certain kind of images that ‘I would never had accepted to paint’ a decade ago… lol I see that I am right where I can in essence catapult my ego back to where it belongs with this kind of tasks that I currently have when it comes to painting, and so practically walking through this ‘desire to create something meaningful’ as in ‘above of myself’ through art, and instead rather focusing on doing things that I am satisfied with, as a piece in itself – no comparisons, no classifications, no labels, but seeing it as the final product that it is.

And yes, I’m aware that any art purist reading this could have a heart attack, which is something I would have had a decade ago and that I’ve essentially had to practically walk through to be doing what I’m currently doing. I still have to get to the point of being genuinely satisfied within myself in it, where I can genuinely ‘like’ it which has a lot to do with rewiring my perceptions, judgments, preferences attached to art which who knows maybe I won’t ever get to ‘re-wire’ and change to like stuff that I know I can create, but don’t necessarily ‘like.’ And so I can redefine this ‘likeness’ not to as personal preference, but as a set of objective parameters of something being well made, well finished and where I am satisfied that I did my best to accomplish it, where I was detailed enough in it and at the same time continue learning and expanding as I go.

Because that’s another very tricky part about art where I believe that it could be an ‘endless’ thing to do because there’s no finite ‘end’ to something, one can always remake it and add things or re-do things and yep, actually currently walking that with some pieces, but I see it as part of getting my hands on this after a long time and so, I rather appreciate and make the best of the time that I have to practice and test things out that I had not done before. To sum up: I am expanding on what I can do and that’s being out of my comfort zone and yeah it’s challenging, but I’m not fighting it or complaining about it at all – it’s simply a matter of bit by bit expanding my horizons as I say in relation to what I am capable of doing.

I won’t lie, I find it quite difficult to say when something is ‘done’ for example, but that’s where I have to keep practicing and start building some self-trust with my creations, which is quite suitable for this self-process as well.

To finalize, what do I decide to make of ‘meaning’? I’ve been looking at this word and what opens up is ‘me-ning’ I decide what I make of things and so to be aware of when I am trying to make something ‘more’ or ‘less’ than anything in my mind, to elevate it or seek for some kind of ‘higher purpose’ to things which is not the point at all. I precisely have to let go of all of these ‘grandeur’ and ‘depth’ in concepts to something as simple as an image painted on a canvas. It just is, doesn’t ‘need’ or ‘require’ to mean something. I decide what kind of ‘me-ning’ I create for it, what I decide to imprint on it and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with the image or content in it, but with ‘who I am’ in the manufacturing of it. In essence, I have to remove this ‘divine aura’ to art which I sincerely don’t even know anymore where the hell I got this idea from… might be art school but seems it was there before already – doesn’t really matter though, point is that I’m aware now of what this ‘holier than thou’ thing is in relation to art.

Within this it has been quite cool to know other artist’s stories and how their approach to doing art was much more simple and ‘normal’ to them, without any pretense other than doing something they could spend their time on while being mostly alone or ‘having nothing to do’ in any given day. Their approach to doing art became a part of ‘what they do for fun’ and as such, there is no baggage with this kind of divine, holistic and godly associations that I imposed onto ‘art creation’ in my life. De-mystifying is a word that is suitable, because when I strip things from this ‘mindfuck’ what is left is the thing in itself, with physical characteristics that are quite obvious and evident and don’t require any ‘extra-head’ to create a meaning for… and that makes sense for me to continue working on, to keep it grounded, keep it physical, keep it simple… because something tells me that’s where I can in fact see ‘the truth’ of myself beyond knowledge and information in the sheer act of painting.

Ok! That’s it… in time I might have some more feedback on this, for now I’m satisfied about seeing all the connections made and where I decide to stand in relation to this ‘meaning’ word in my day to day and when I approach other creations such as films, paintings, etc. Thanks for reading

 

 

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421. Art is in the Eye of the Beholder

 

I took this great blog title from Leila Zamora Moreno who gave it as a name for her son’s Cesar first masterpiece which I am going to share here because it’s his first year alive on Earth today!

We got a Pollock coming, people!

 

So, I watched a documentary on Marina Abramovic’s work called Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present and noticed how through watching it, I was constantly seeking for some kind of ‘meaningful’ thing to come through, something that could match my idea of ‘art.’ Through writing the self forgiveness I’m about to share, I realize that I had become this constant judge toward anything I’ve defined as ‘art’ and within doing so measuring/gauging it and see if it does match my idea of art as something that can ‘change the world’ and if not, usually I would follow through to judge it as pointless, useless, a waste of time, etc. In fact I had written out a blog about the documentary, but obviously noticed it was filled with righteous comments so as to impose ‘my perspective’ which then of course was a cool thing to do or else I would have remained within the idea/belief that ‘I was right in my assessment’ lol.

I also reacted when seeing people organizing performances and/or artistic creations around an ongoing situation here in Mexico about students having been disappeared/most likely killed due to a political point of convenience for a governor in one state here and then judging this as ‘pointless’ and ‘meaningless’ and then rehashing the judgment of ‘how come I can despise this ‘art world’ so much now and I once was so eager to be a part of it, where was I?’ – so here I go straight to Self Forgiveness.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to say to myself, how was I ever involved in this art/cultural realm and come to despise it so much at the same time? Which is only showing the usual love-hate relationship wherein of course any ‘negative’ experience is in fact denoting I still hold a relationship toward art, and as such, it’s all about ME in fact and not at all about art/artists or the art world at all – this is then the point of self-responsibility to expand upon here.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience remorse and embarrassment for having ever aimed at achieving an artistic career as I followed my desire to experience something ‘special’ through art and aim at ‘changing the world’ with it, which simply means that I was entirely driven by my own emotional and feeling experience and that this clouded my ability to see reality for what it is and genuinely question whether a ‘work of art’ has in fact ever changed people’s lives to the extent that I thought it would.

In this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge art as something frivolous or useless, wherein by defining it in such way I am then creating a negative relationship to it, but still a relationship nonetheless, so this is about me taking responsibility to ensure I no longer impose any ideas, beliefs, perceptions and reactions toward ‘art’ itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create yet again an experience of disdain toward people that are using art as a way to demonstrate the corruption and deaths of people here in Mexico, wherein now artists are gathering to create portraits of students that have been – most likely – sent to be killed by a high authority in one of the states here in Mexico, and so reacting with the experience of ‘this is utter bullshit’ and so having the desire to just curse at the people that believe that in any way doing a portrait or performance of and for the people that have disappeared will change their family’s grief or would in any way ‘solve the problem.’

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize that this ‘disdain’ is simply a tantrum like experience that comes after one had created certain ideals and expectations upon something, which is why one has such a ‘stance’ toward – in this case – art, instead of realizing that ‘art’ in itself in this case is not aiming at creating a tangible, physical solution, but simply a remembrance that some people might find supportive and that’s up to each person and how they react/interact with such artistic expressions – therefore

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become hypercritical to anything that has to do with art and aiming at bashing it constantly or whenever I can, which only demonstrates my own judgments and ‘false expectations’ created and imposed toward art, wherein I was trying to make of art an actual ‘tool to change the world’ but I realize that ‘art’ in itself as a manifestation and expression cannot do that at all – self change is and will always be here as ourselves, it is about who we are in our mind and in our actions, which in turn will define our creations as well.

 

I realize that in this, of course I’m missing out the actual self-forgiveness that extends beyond ‘myself’ only but as a human being that has lived in a world where pictures, emotions, experiences are the actual ‘drivers’ and/or ‘fuel’ of our reality, wherein the society of spectacle also involves creating this kind of ‘motives’ and ‘remembrances’ using art as a way to ‘heal the wounds’ or else, without realizing that in essence, art only works at a mind level and as such, it creates no solution to real-reality problems and in this

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge art for not being what I expected it to be, instead of realizing that it’s only me that tried to make it’ more’ than what it in fact is – in this

 I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to constantly try and fit ‘art’ into the category of a human creation that will in some way ‘change the world’ or ‘change people’s consciousness’ wherein in my desire to ‘fit’ art into this ideal, I’ve actually created such an unnecessary conflict within me, because I see that it is just impossible to do so, because nothing, no object, no image can ‘change you’ but only oneself in actually understanding why changing is necessary and how one can practically do it – in this:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get so infatuated with the idea of ‘change’ being able to exist within art, which you know in terms of the large scope of what art is, this idea of ‘change’ is already a limitation, a definition that is coming strictly from who I am and what I am walking in my life, which is very much aligned with ‘changing myself ‘ – thus, I have to stop trying to fit the world, fit people’s idea of art into my own.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be gullible and somewhat stubborn in trying to fit ‘my idea’ of art into everyone else’s artistic creation, which then of course leads me to only criticize, judge it, see it as ‘not good enough’ or ‘pointless’ or plain ‘bullshit’ without realizing that I’m judging it from my own point of view that aimed to make of art ‘something life changing and revolutionary.’ Therefore, I realize that I have to STOP trying to impose my own ideas of what art was supposed to be as a catalyst or a way to change people’s minds/lives and instead of trying to measure ‘all art’ against my own idea/belief and perception of what ‘art should be, I have to rather use all judgments as a way to continue checking what exists within me as an expectative or assumption around art, as this is then how I can use art or anything else as a mirror to continue seeing where I am creating experiences and separation from what is here.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to play out the love and hate relationship toward art, which only signifies one thing: there are still remnants of self-definition within me according to ‘being an artist’ or wanting to stick to that profession as ‘what I studied’ or ‘who I was,’ because in a way I still wanted to try and ‘save the profession’ as ‘my choice’ and having done so in absolute clarity and conviction within myself; and so this was my attempt of trying to justify my decision thinking that I wasn’t so ‘out there’ or detached from reality when I chose to study this – but, at the moment I can see that I was in fact not really ‘grounded’ on Earth 10 years ago when I made such decision and that somehow I am still beating myself for it, which is not necessary – therefore

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for having chosen what I now judge as some self-conceited and self-importance and absolutely self-indulgent profession as ‘art’ which in this is in fact only judging and ‘dissing’ that which didn’t ‘turn out to be what I expected’ and so, I realize that I have gone back and forth within this experience in the past of the ‘love and hate relationship toward art,’ but the problem is that I still tried to ‘suit my idea’ of what art should be in everything that I continue to see/watch and consume as ‘art,’ instead of realizing that I have to absolutely let go of the idea that I once held about art, let go unconditionally of my past choices in life, of my past ‘mindset’ and as such, stop any judgments around this point within me.

I commit myself to see art for what it is: a series of visual or experiential-based objects or images or actions wherein one is challenged to see reality with another pair of eyes and get to see reality from each person’s mindframe and perspective – thus to take it ‘for what it is’ as an individual or collective expression, instead of continually trying to see ‘where or how is this in any way changing the world?’ which is My idea of what art should be and the reason why this conflict still would emerge within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge ‘the past me’ as vain and superfluous for having chosen such a career and now in one way or another wanting to throw shit at it, which is not really acceptable at all, because art as any other action and creation that we do in this world, is part of what we also have to take responsibility for. Thus my way to contribute to it, is not to ‘bash’ something because it did not ‘fulfill’ my expectations upon it, but rather take the words that I had once associated with art / being an artist and live them myself in the way that I see is supportive and best for all.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to having said this morning ‘where the hell was I when I decided to study art?’ and say so with a sense of regret and disdain toward me and so toward everything and everyone involved in such practice, instead of realizing that if I did this same kind of reproachment for everything else that I see we have done ‘wrong’ in our lives, I would live in constant reproachment which is obviously not necessary at all as in that, we only trap ourselves in guilt and remorse, instead of focusing on what is required to be changed HERE.  

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see and realize that what’s hiding behind this is me not wanting to admit that it was my own starting point toward art that defined my now judgment toward ‘art’ which is not about ‘art’ but about me and how I was in fact living and acting in a self-absorbed manner and was seeking for the kind of things like fame, fortune, all the money and the ‘good life’ as well as bashing the system while earning good money, lol – so I realize that I have to simply admit to myself the kind of decisions that I made in the past, the reasons behind it and that there is no way that I can ‘turn back time and change my decisions and career choice’ because I do realize that the decisions I made in my past were absolutely ‘congruent’ to my mind-frame, my interests, my aspirations in the past and within this, I have to absolutely let go of me trying to ‘make sense’ of my initial ambitions and desires in life so as to justify them, and try and see them with a ‘good light’ so to speak, which is not really necessary to now super impose some ‘goodness’ to it, because that would simply imply that I am still judging my past life and decisions as something ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘self-interested,’ which is not really necessary once that I realize I have simply moved on from that phase in my life and my interests and aim in life have veered substantially from how I used to think 10 years ago, which I am of course grateful to myself for as well and for all the past moments that led to this realization.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project my dissatisfaction with my past choices upon every other artwork or artist I see and get to know of by judging their work and activity in all possible ways wherein I diminish it to being ‘pointless’ and ‘useless’ and taking this as a ‘fact,’ without realizing that all of these were only self-judgments that I have created around ‘art’ based on my own judgments toward myself and my past.

Therefore I commit myself to stop wanting to impose my idea of what ‘art should be’ upon others’ creations and simply redefine the word for myself to live as the actual creator of my life within the principles that I have established for myself of self-responsibility, self-introspection, self-forgiveness and self-correction as I see that this is what I have realized is the genuine way to do what I always aimed doing through art, which is changing myself and so with that, changing the world – therefore I hereby let go of the desire to ‘change the world’ through art  or attempt to make of art that ‘one point that changes the world’ which is also not ‘the point’ here.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to as a human being desire to do something ‘more than myself’ through objects, experiences, artifacts outside of myself and now judging art for what I believe or assume ‘artists’ are aiming to do, which is another judgment coming from what I used to do with art itself, instead of realizing that art can be used as a bridge for self-investigation, yet it is not ‘the change’ in itself at a massive level that I wished it to be at some point, as I realize that self-change and self-realization cannot in any way be something done through only one action, one object, one image and have an effect ‘en masse’ – there are no magic tricks on this.

 

I commit myself to stop judging art, artists, art collectors, art supporters and everyone that enjoys art and instead see ‘art’ within the realm of any other human activity that we do at the moment which means that everything we are and do is yet to be walked through a process of self-realization and self-correction, which means there cannot be something that is genuinely ‘supportive’ if there is no foundation to understand such support or what would be supportive to ‘change oneself’ or ‘change the world’  – thus I am the one that has to stop seeing art through the eyes of ‘practical change’ and/or ‘practical relevance for self-change’ wherein I then create a righteousness to create ‘negative’ judgments toward it, which is once again falling in the judgmental trap that leads nowhere and in fact then I would support the continuation of separation, reactions, judgments and division in the world.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think, believe and perceive that because I studied art, I have ‘an authority’ to bash it which is really only playing the same critique conundrum that I have also criticized in the past, instead of seeing art or anything else as just expressions that each one of us will have to take self-responsibility for, for the intent, the purpose and the experience within which it was created – thus, I am no one to judge anyone or anything for what it is, I can only reflect myself upon the world and thus take responsibility for my judgments, my experiences, my expressions ‘toward others’ and always realize it has nothing to do with art per se, with artists or with the artworks themselves, but with myself.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to still have wanted to control ‘my vision’ about art and so be able to ‘measure all other art’ according to what I had defined as ‘art,’ not realizing that this definition of ‘art’ is not even certain for people in art creation themselves. So, this is once again a point to show how when trying to ‘fit in’ one’s definition upon something/someone, because  each definition is created in one’s mind, it will always be a source of conflict to try and define something that in its nature is not meant to even be ‘defined’ as such, thus I see that my point of control was coming also from self-interest and still wanting to somehow remain with the dignity of having studied something ‘meaningful’ or ‘more than’ any other career, which would then lead me to play a value game that is once again of the mind and of consciousness definitions.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to still go and see art in the hope that I will find something that is ‘life changing’ which is why every time I obviously come out without ‘anything’ or ‘nothing learned’ because I am seeing it all through the eyes of ‘come on, art exhibit, change me, change my life!’ which is impossible of course, it would be like thinking that praying to the image of a god or a saint will change your life, which is simply a delusion.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for having ever been fascinated with creations because I have now judged this as ‘vain’ instead of realizing that just as anything that we create in this world, we can appreciate it for what it is in its physicality and no longer having the ‘artistic value-frame’ with which I was trying to measure it against, as this is once again trying to control and impose my own perspectives and experiences toward ‘art’ itself upon others’ creations. It would be like trying to define which human being is more ‘beautiful’ than another or which tree is ‘more expressive’ than another – it is really pointless and a waste of breaths to be dwelling upon this kind of questions, because ultimately if there’s something in art is that precisely this whole ‘valuation’ scheme is meant to be broken or questioned at least.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have judged this point as ‘petty’ or ‘non important’ or there being more ‘relevant things to blog about’ but, I realize that due to the actual judgmental view that emerged within me while watching Marina Abramović’s documentary and when getting to know of artists gathering to create something around people that have disappeared through political reasons, it was then a point to of course review and open up within myself so that I can align this one point within me and my day to day living and so stop the judgmental me toward art or artists as a constant source of conflict.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I have some ‘right’ to judge something because of having ‘studied’ it, which is essentially a belief learned from how our system operates with licenses and such, without realizing that a judgment will always be a judgment specifically when it’s made in an attempt to debase or ‘debunk’ something as to ‘make it less’ in a way, wherein then my judgment becomes in my mind something ‘superior’ to point out.

 

In this the application is actually to ensure that I can investigate all things and keep what’s best, instead of investigating all things, judge and criticize with an attempt to ‘debase’ something and then place my judgment as ‘superior’ which is obviously a destructive and consequential way of looking at things.

I realize that I can use anything and anyone in my world as a mirror, and in this, whichever I may think, believe and perceive relates to ‘another’ is in fact about myself, because I can only think/judge something about someone  if I have judged myself in the same way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I was in fact desiring to ‘take a position’ or ‘take a side’ in relation to art because of the self-definition I have created within and towards ‘art’ which is how one then creates a sense of ‘righteousness’ as in having ‘one stance’ in relation to it, which is all knowledge and information based, it is not at all considering what is common sensical or looking at what’s supportive within something – but instead, immediately putting on the ‘judgmental glasses’ and ‘finding fault’ eyes going into ‘attack’ mode to point out all the ‘flaws’ but all of these flaws are pointed out within the starting point of me already seeking to ‘debunk’ another, which is quite the usual nasty game that we play when we want to impose our own mind/righteousness, what we believe is ‘right’ above others.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to question the ‘impulse’ that I sometimes have in relation to wanting to talk about something/someone in an attempt to ‘debunk’ them while still holding a judgment with experience in it as to ‘prove it wrong’ – instead of realizing that I can talk about something/someone without having to resort to taking an antagonist stance toward it, but simply be able to reference it, to look at it in common sense and then  focus on reflecting any judgment back to myself, that’s the only way one can really develop self-honesty, and stop only criticizing things for the sake of feeling ‘righteous’ about something or someone and so justify my experience toward something or someone, in this case, my ‘experience’ toward art which shouldn’t exist at all as an experience.

In this it is to realize that any experience that I have toward something/someone, it indicates I have created a relationship to it, and so it becomes a point for me to take self-responsibility for which means: it’s never about ‘art’ itself, it’s about how I see it, who I am toward it and this is then a much more supportive starting point to look at art and visit art galleries, to see ‘what comes up within me,’ instead of visiting and looking at art from the starting point of ‘proving it wrong’ or wanting it to ‘match my ideal’ of art, which is why all this back and forth friction toward it emerged: it’s all an inside job.

 

I realize that ourselves as human beings tend to seek for answers or ‘find ourselves’ ‘out there’ instead of realizing that everything we require is already here, as ourselves. So in this, I commit myself to stop judging anything that we do/use in order to get to this point of self-realization, wherein I see that art can be used as a tool of self-reflection as with anything else in the world and what we create and do within it. This is where I then have to realize that my process and realizations cannot be the same as others’ and so, I have no authority to judge others’ processes, ideas, beliefs and perceptions – this process is about self-responsibility so here I then commit myself to always see art as a cool point of self-reflection wherein I stop all judgments ‘toward’ art or artists themselves, but rather see ‘who am I’ toward it and use that for my own process of self-honesty.

 

I commit myself to integrate the realization that everything that I judge or criticize in a judgmental manner is and only has to do with myself and the relationships I have created toward something/someone in my past, and so I can only look at things/people objectively where I can first identify if there is any reaction, take it back to self wherein I see the origin of such judgment toward it, do a self-reflective analysis on it in order to support me in common sense to immediately realize: I am imposing my past definitions upon this moment here –  and so I then focus on seeing, watching, reading and participating in anything related to art for what it is – no hidden agendas allowed within me.

 

For a review on the documentary:

• Podcast: Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present

 

 

 

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390. Making Decisions Based on Feelings, Not Facts

 

Continuing from:

• 387. The Love/Hate Relationship with Art
• 388. Regretting Choices and Definitions
• 389. Are Emotions Necessary to Be Creative?

Quote from “The Love/Hate Relationship with Art” entry: The point is I tried to make My definition of Art fit with what would enable me to use it to demonstrate that it is possible to change the world. However I realized that no matter how many images I make, how many pictures I take, how many great ideas I would have I was entirely mostly having an imaginative outflow of how this could operate without ever really landing it into any serious/real project. I always kept everything at a low-fi level because right after the first year in Art school, I discovered Desteni and my interests veered dramatically – hence the ‘shutting down’ of any pursue to further my career to make a name of myself etc..

 

Patterns:

1. The idea of Art as an instrument to “Change the World.” Suiting something according to my interests, to justify my ends in order to cover up another self-definition I am wanting to hold on to – in this case wanting to make the definition of art suit my current interests so that I’m able to say that ‘I’m still doing a form of art, even if it’s not conventional,’ without realizing that it’s merely a definition in itself and that as such, I have to stop making this definition suit my interest around art, and merely see the actions/deeds for what they are and imply.

2. Expecting something to ‘happen to me’, someone to ‘save me,’ someone to ‘find me’ instead of me moving myself in order to make things happen, to become my own directive principle instead of hoping, waiting or fantasizing about the things that can happen ‘in the future.’

3. The idea that something outside of myself can ‘change the world’ in itself, in this case that I could ‘change the world’ through creating art, or that art should be used to demonstrate that we can change the world, when in fact this is once again delegating to something/someone the ability to change, without realizing that there can be many catalysts for change, practical presentations for it – but it will only ever work if we implement it, integrate it, live it and become it ourselves and by ‘change’ I mean becoming an individual that takes responsibility for our creation, that learn how to coexist with everyone else as equals and as such participates to create a world where everyone is supported to live in dignity. Where does that begin? Within self only. A system, a structure can support and promote the change, but it is about each one of us integrating such change within ourselves to make it real. Therefore ‘art’ in itself cannot change the world, only we can one by one.

4. Giving up on something based on seeing ‘no result’ in a short period of time, without taking into consideration that everything in this world and reality requires actual work, time, dedication, constancy and consistency as well as patience to have something be developed in order to give fruition. So giving up on something/someone based on not getting any ‘quick results’ is rather a mechanism of self-sabotage where I am expecting things to work ‘instantaneously’ instead of considering a plan, a structure, the practical steps and timeframes, methods and ways to make something function/work to give the expected results. This means: no wishful thinking.

5. Blaming something/someone for sidetracking from my initial purposes, I have realized how we usually blame something/someone in order to not recognize our sole responsibility to our decisions, words, thoughts and deeds.

6. Making decisions in my life based on emotions and feelings, wishful thinking, desires and fantasies –  mostly going for what ‘feels good’ and avoiding what according to my ego/personalities felt ‘not right’/ ‘not good’ – instead of considering the actual physical space-time planning, structure, steps, time and consequences of the decisions

 

 

 

Self Forgiveness on these patterns:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to shape a definition of ‘art’ that would suit my personal interests of wanting it to be the ‘tool to change the world’ without realizing that in this equation I was separating myself from such change and only considering that ‘art’ had to be that ‘for me,’ and because I didn’t see results this way in the short-run then I gave it up completely, without realizing that this is a usual pattern wherein I expect things to ‘do something for me’ instead of me being the directive principle within everything that I do – as such it makes sense that a single image, or drawing or video or else can do the ‘change’ process in itself, and as such it is only a tool that can support with the realization and recognition of change that I have to still conduct, apply, live within myself as everyone else as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to this definition of art as the quote by Ernst Fischer that also later on I had a ‘fuck it they’ve done it all first’ moment when seeing that in the beginning of the Zeitgeist movie they used this quote that I was cherishing as ‘the foundation’ for my ‘art project’ in itself which is the quote from his book ‘The Necessity of Art’

“In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it”

And with this, believe that I had to always s stick to these definitions, quotes and theories to justify what I wanted to do with my life as an ‘agent of social change’ and still ‘stick’ to my career, just because of the fear of being seen as a ‘dropout’ or someone that didn’t follow-through with art-creation, which is all based on the beliefs and expectations that I believed people had created upon me, because the career is definitely one that I chose for social-recognition upon something that I considered I was ‘special’ within – therefore the whole conflict of having to justify what I do within an artistic context, without realizing that if we look at it beyond definitions, the process of change and being the example of what it means to change is what I am doing and what I’ve decided to do with my life in function of creating a better world, to establish living principles of creation where there exist barely non at the moment, and as such once again using ‘artistic creations’ and creativity as tools with which to do this, without forgetting that I do not require to justify what I do within an artistic concept for the sake of ‘sticking to my career-choice’ as an idea of ‘who I am.’

I realize that instead I can share how I can apply these principles to what I do/ who I am and the practical ways in which I’ve realized we can conduct this change in our decaying society – whoever I commit myself to no longer wanting to justify what I do within this imperative need to make of my life and my decisions as ‘still’ artistic or part of my career choice, as that single theoretical link that I’m attempting to create is what re-enacts the relationship conflict in relation to me and the studies I took on, without realizing that what really matters is not a tag, a name, a definition but how these principles are lived and applied in real-practical living.

Another pattern is ‘giving up’ on something if it doesn’t satisfy my expectations and not putting it all the effort to make it work, because in the mind I always expect quantum results and having immediate effect of my expectations in this case and example, the entire intent behind everything that I would do as an ‘artistic creation/ project’ was to ‘fit in’ my own desires to make my inner process ‘artistic’ as well, and it can be done and for sure it’s even compatible – though the point here is to point out how within this starting point, I was once wanting the ‘artwork’ to do its effect by itself, and kind of hoping that someone would just ‘notice it’ and make me famous type of ideals, which is really unrealistic because nothing in physical reality really works that way

And within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imprint a form of hope and ‘waiting’ with myself and my career, my ‘art’ because I was kind of expecting that someone would knock on my door and discover my creations and make me famous type of ideal and unreality. And this is what I see I had built also around my own ‘career choice,’ wherein I had not defined a plan for my future in fact, but just kind of getting myself into the art world and having something/someone come to me or happen to me that would ‘lead me’ to become successful at it, so there was a lot of wishful thinking, positive thinking involved in wanting this to materialize ‘by itself,’ kind of only having ‘the work do its work,’ which is certainly not how reality works and as such

 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to give up on my creative skills because of not seeing ‘any results,’ which is the pattern of giving up on something if not getting the expected results right away in turn, which is what happens when I do not consider the actual effort, the actual process of making something work, something be successful, any enterprise that I embark myself on and not expect it to be ‘successful’ right away, but rather work within the accumulation principle wherein the amount of time, work and effort invested onto a business/ an enterprise or anything that I have committed myself to do, is not going to be ‘minimal’ or ‘very little’ as in this reality everything takes time, effort, patience, constancy, consistency, developing further skills, developing further relationships and all of this implies that what I attempted to do with my life and my wishful thinking about my artistic career was not founded upon physical, practical planning and considerations but that I absolutely just ‘jumped into the boat’ because it sounded great and it satisfied my intentions back then when I made the decision to study art – so within this,

I realize that when we make decisions based on emotions/feelings and dreams, it will most likely be crashing down on the pavement back to reality because it was all a temporary foam that I created in my mind as ‘my future,’ without any real consideration of the work, the time, the money, the people, the places, the relationships, the materials, the skills or anything of that, but only wanting to kind of have something/someone ‘make me famous’ or ‘make me successful,’ which is no different to how we as human beings tend to be hoping and waiting that something/someone will come to save us, just because we haven’t yet realized or learned that we can only make things happen if we move within it, if we invest the time, money, effort, patience, consistency that goes with making any plan, any enterprise work.

Further support for business and non-business people on this point: Time = Money – The Soul of Money

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to in my mind covertly ‘blame process’ for me not having followed through with my career, without realizing that such ‘blame’ is in fact looking at the actual regret and realizing the nature of the decisions I made in my life, wherein instead of taking absolute responsibility for my life and realizing the lack of practical planning and decision making processes that I had to make, I instead realized the flimsy planning – if any – I had created for me and my life and as such only finished school for the sake of ‘finishing it’ but my ‘heart’ as they say was not into it any longer, because I realized the expectations, dreams and ideals that I entered to school with, which all came ‘tumbling down’ when realizing the reality that I had missed in my decisions – therefore

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to spite myself in this extreme of going from the absolute experience of being ‘into my career’ and giving it the most to giving it the minimum required based on the realization of my intentions behind studying art, and here instead of just forgiving myself for that and being able to walk through it without reactions, I slowly but surely built a certain experience of overall ‘regret’ about it which is how the love-hate relationship was formed. It all happened in my mind based on the positive experience I had imprinted to the idea of studying art/becoming an artist and how when realizing such positive-feelings and imaginations and hoping and dreaming about what I could do in art, I went into the polarity opposite of deeming it as something negative/bad/superficial instead of just realizing what I had done, take self responsibility for it which in a way I did in relation to finishing studies, but within myself as well wherein I am able to stand sound with understanding the context of my past decisions, walk through the consequence without imprinting ‘the consequence’ with negative experiences, as that is where the whole inner conflict was created – and yes, it is quite unnecessary when it is just a matter of walking physical moments, experiences, processes that require my participation and direction and that’s it.

I realize that what’s done is done and as such the only gift I can give to myself is being able to prevent me from once again making decisions in my life based on ‘how I feel’ about something or someone, and instead learn from the ‘mistakes’ so to speak in order to learn how to take into consideration physical reality, practical planning, realistic considerations and of course in such ‘career decision’ processes, look at the practicality of where I can employ myself and genuinely develop a financial stability with it, because I of course now realize that I could have done it differently if my decision was to remain doing artwork, it was about investing a lot of time to it, which is what I had initially planned to do – but of course, after realizing the actual practical process required in this world, my ‘decision making’ process was almost immediate when choosing to dedicate myself to walk this process that in turn I can apply into and within any other realm that I see is most practical to assist and support others to walk the same process.

I realize here that art once again can be a tool of support for this process that I’ve decided to walk – however I could not realistically see myself investing most of my time in developing certain skills that I knew I wasn’t going to be using any longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like a ‘fraud’ to the teachers and the people that supported me throughout my stance in art school and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be ashamed toward them because of believing that they invested their time ‘incorrectly’ and even the ‘spot’ I had in such important school could have been used by another person that genuinely wanted to be an artist

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to take me to see ‘the bright side’ as in ‘not everything is lost because I learned a lot from some of the books, teachers and interactions in school as well as the skills,’ which in part it is so, but here it is not to once again want to ‘white wash it’ and get a positive experience out of it –here I then see things for what they are, realizing that yes I probably won’t be making etchings and using all of those techniques I learned, however if my starting point of that is ‘wasting my time’ or ‘someone else’s time,’ then I also forgive myself as that comes within the idea that I took something from someone by attending that school, without realizing that I did want to be there, I did want to learn that and as such, because we cannot turn back time I simply walked through the whole educational process till the end and that’s it. I took responsibility for my choice and now I also take responsibility for my life wherein I recognize other ways in which I can direct myself to support myself and others within this process which is my purpose in life and ‘my life’ in itself, and as such whether what I do is deemed as artistic or creative or not, is not something that matters, as this is not about definitions or how actions and words are categorized, but instead how they are lived and applied.

I forgive myself that I had accepted and allowed myself to step into a career with the sole purpose and idea of ‘making a name’ for myself, to further my recognition ambitions for doing something that people would consider ‘great’ without realizing that in this, I was only spiting myself because I am the one that had to face the consequences of not properly planning my decisions in life, to make sound/physical and practical decisions and not just go for how ‘good’ it made feel and how ‘nice’ my imaginations were in relation to day-dreaming of being an artist and being famous, being recognized and having the ‘time of my life’ within the context of having money, be able to ‘change the world’ – according to my dreams – and at the same time be happy and feel ‘blessed’ as that is the kind of spiritual attitude I was into when I got into art school, quite imbued with spirituality and positive thinking which is why I also allowed myself to want to ‘attract’ success and not consider physical-doings like practical planning, assessing my skills and aptitudes etc. but only choose a career based on my ‘feeling’ of ‘being special/unique’ and having this apparent ‘gift’ to create something, without realizing that we are all capable of creating something and that me taking a decision within this delusion was most likely prone to generate consequences that I am walking through as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make decisions in my life in terms of choices, people, places, careers, what ‘I like’ or what makes me ‘feel special’ and what I accept in my life based on experience, based on what ‘felt good’ what felt ‘right’ according to my personalities, and veer off from that which didn’t satisfy my ego, my desire to be doing something ‘more creative’ based on how I defined ‘creativity’ on plastic arts mostly, which as I’ve walked is rather limiting if we only recognized our ability to create based on making ‘art works.’

Therefore, I realize that in my life I made many decisions based on feeling, on the experience, on the beliefs, on the expectations, on the dream-like state that I would usually fuel myself with in order to actually evade looking at the reality that I had considered was ‘too awful’ to face and to walk thoroughly as any other individual. Meaning that my decision to be ‘an artist’ was precisely to be ‘eccentric’ and to be ‘acceptable’ within such eccentricity meaning outside of the regular circles of society because of having a judgment toward ‘the system’ and ‘society’ as a whole based on seeing how politics, education systems, money works and the lack thereof, which is why upon facing this ‘insanity’ I kind of decided to make myself ‘insane’ as well as the ‘good reflection of society’ that I was planning to be and become, and so be able to ‘create’ from such image and likeness of the system. Hence the nature of self-destruction portrayed in what I created, even if I was not able to say ‘why’ I only see death and destruction mostly, sadness, depression and overall madness, which was just me trying to become that and do that to myself and the world to not face the responsibility to it, as it’s easier to ‘destroy’ than deconstruct, reconstruct and create something new and stable again.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realize or ‘remember’ that my ‘initial intent’ of what I wanted to be and become in my life was in the very beginning before art was ‘in my life,’ to study a career that would make me have a lot of money and be able to ‘travel around the world’ – the usual ‘dreams’ that came with me initially wanting to become a financial advisor wherein I could use my ‘skills’ in a profitable manner. I also recognize that studying art was my way of apparently ‘spiting my parents/others’ that believed that I was going to study some ‘great and complicated career’ based on the supposed intelligence I had, wherein I realized that the only way to ‘turn the tables’ and not follow the pattern, was to study something wherein what I do wasn’t able to be graded with A’s for ‘being right’ but where I could challenge other skills and abilities that to my perception were not able to get ‘ratings,’ without realizing later on that they would still be rated in the same manner any other school work gets rated, which got me irate and furious the very first time that I considered I had placed ‘all my effort’ into something, for months on, working even in my supposed ‘leisure time’ with the attempt to get an A and I got a B and that was ‘heartbreaking’ for me because I was expecting my work to be recognized as ‘good.’ In this I realize that even if I wanted to supposedly ‘escape’ the grading system and the apparent skills I had by ‘studying art,’ I later on realized that art and the art world is no different to any other part of this system that we live in, wherein it is not this wonderland where system-laws don’t apply – and that is how I was able to also burst my own bubble of escapism when realizing that art was no different to any other part of this reality that is managed by ourselves, individuals and that it doesn’t really imply something entirely ‘different’ to any other career because it is still existent within the context of a world system where what you do is assessed and valued in order to be sold as a product so that one can have money to eat. And that makes it no different to any other career or profession – so even within this, I realized that there was no really a way ‘out’ of the system, which then became another reason to be disillusioned at ‘the art world,’ without realizing that any ‘disillusionment’ is really created based on the initial positive ideals that I had formed around it, which means: I did this all to myself and as such, it is not a ‘guilt trip’ now, as that would evade me from walking now the self-responsibility to my decisions and my life in itself and the decision making processes that I will now consider in practical and physical terms, not based on feelings/emotions and ideals.

 

 

Suggest watching the following Desteni I Process Google Hangouts:

• Angry at the World and Want to do Something about it?

• Empowerment Through Practical Solutions in a Hopeless Time

To learn more about the mind and how you can make informed decisions in your life, visit:

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• Desteni Forum
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• 7 Year Journey To Life Process

388. Regretting Choices and Definitions

 

Continuing from:

• 387. The Love/Hate Relationship with Art

 

Self Forgiveness on:

I require to open up – again – the relationship with art. I’ve noticed that I created some sort of past bad relationship experience with it, similar to the ones that I’ve had with people throughout my life wherein there were things unsaid, situations undirected and just cutting it up from one day to another without further communication. I realize I’ve done this with art creation and the general regret I’ve had in terms of the decision I took some 8 years ago to go to art school and actually drop out from my first choice which was linguistics and which would have probably been a lot more supportive for me to have as a degree than arts, and so there goes regret as well for the choices I made in the delusion of ‘I want to express myself ’ and limit that definition to only ‘arts’ and specifically visual arts. To begin with, a disclaimer here is to understand that I am walking/writing out my frame of mind and that whichever judgment I place here in relation to arts/artists/creative processes in art is what I’ve conjured up throughout time and self-reflection about my decisions in life and in no way does this imply an actual ‘bashing’ as all of these judgments, ideas, perceptions, conceptions will be self-forgiven.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience the moment of creating something as an image, a picture, a painting as something rather ‘pointless’ and useless in which ‘I have wasted my time’ and in this generating the overall idea that ‘doing art’ is a waste of time – without looking at how I began to define what I would do as ‘art work’ as ‘meaningless’ and ‘pointless’ when I began to understand my motives, my purpose behind ‘being an artist’ myself – wherein I wanted to Define ME according to my creation, according to every single drawing, painting, photograph, video or any other creation that would be part of my ego-construction as the ‘who I believe myself to be’ and all of this based on the premise of ‘me wanting to be famous’ or ‘me wanting to be recognized as special and unique’ and so, when the time came for me to debunk myself, my own ego-construction of ‘who I am’ as ‘an artist,’ then all of the experiences and definitions that I had attached onto painting, drawing, doing anything creative even with words, photographs, videos… all of it I then judged as ‘useless’ or ‘pointless’ because they were not going to fulfill My idea of what these things were meant to be doing For Me before, which was ‘building my ego.’ And as such, when I stop participating in the creation of my ego through my artworks and my so called ‘special vision’ I then create a polarity relationship toward my creations because I could no longer see them as unique or special or anything like that, and instead of seeing them just for the matter/materials and arrangements that they are, I went into an opposite experience defining these creations as pointless, egotistical and useless without realizing the polarity judgments I was creating based on having first defined artistic creations with all positive experiences such as a genuine representation and expression of who I am, and what I want to express to the world – which came with the imprint of ‘me’ as special and unique. So this is to identify the polarity relationship I created based on my own definitions

I realize that therefore the experience that I’ve generated toward ‘art’ in general doesn’t provide a solution to the problems in this world – and within this generalizing what ‘art’ is based on what expectations I didn’t get fulfilled for myself within the relationship formed toward Art itself, and this is how it is no different to how we can ‘call names’ to something or someone that doesn’t satisfy us based on the ideals that we created about it, yet I didn’t work on in order to manifest these ideals into reality either.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want ‘art’ to be and become this ‘tool’ with which I can ‘change the world,’ without realizing that I then caged myself within my own intentions, definitions and purpose I gave to ‘art’ in itself – instead of myself – and as such, when I saw that these aims and purposes were not ‘fulfilled’ in a rather noticeable manner or ‘short span,’ then I simply gave it up because I realized that there were other ways to make this process of self-change more tangible and noticeable other than paintings, drawings, little videos or else as these creations were mostly born within the intention of myself as ego, as the idea of being able to create a name for myself and be glorified by it and missing out the entire point that I now see is more relevant, which is not self-glorification but to utilize our skills, our talents to provide a key for others to start questioning reality and start considering another way in which we are able to live and as such, change the world in a practical manner, which begins within self;

I initially have had certain ideas imprinted within my decision to create art which were among others to evade the world – without realizing one cannot really do this – being able to become a special/unique individual with this amazing vision of the world – and within this, I decided to rather focusing on myself, my own deconstruction of the ego I had become and reconstruct myself as an individual that can genuinely be and become an example of what it is to focus on what matters in this world within the principle of doing what’s best for everyone, what can create and generate actual changes in this world and within this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define ‘art’ as being unable to do this, and this is where I clarify that it is not that ‘art’ in itself isn’t able to do the work, as it is ourselves as human beings the ones that are responsible for using whichever tools and means we have and see can be effective to share a message with others and provide solutions to our lives within our minds where we usually only see problems and conflicts.

I realize that I had delegated some kind of ‘magic power’ to art to be this transformational tool that can in itself ‘change people’s lives’ which is rather pretentious, non realistic and even with bits of spiritual approach that I had initially also commenced with in my relationship with art as well – therefore I now see, realize and understand that art in any of it forms or definitions for that matter, can be used as a tool to support the realization of ourselves as human beings, to portray the problems and the solutions that we can all give direction to – but in no way can I expect this ‘thing’ or ‘concept’ as ‘art’ to do the thing for itself, as it is Always about ourselves human beings being able to give direction to ourselves with using any and all means/media/methods and tools that are existent within our world and societies as of now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop a relationship of ‘hate’ and ‘love’ toward art – wherein I went in this form of ‘hate’ based on not getting my expected results from it, or being disillusioned from the results I was expecting I would get from it, which is once again wanting this something/someone create some transcendental change for me and others in itself, without realizing that I had to give it direction, make things happen, make things works instead of just hoping or wishing that something like an artistic expression does the work in itself – it can be an aid within the purpose of assisting and supporting ourselves as human beings to ‘wake up’ and realize the work that is required to be done in order to give ourselves direction and responsibility to our world which is our creation – and in this art is not more or less than any other expression or tool or point existing in our reality that has an equal potential of being supportive within our process of self-realization and self-responsibility as equals in this world.

I forgive myself that I had accepted and allowed myself to develop a relationship of ‘love’ toward art based on the Experiences I created within me while working on it: being able to be alone, detached from the world, sinking into my imagination, being able to just ‘forget about the world’ and recreate one of my own within the starting point of someday maybe getting real fame and glory from it, being recognized as this talented unique individual that I had believed myself to be and as such, believing that ‘my thing’ was to do art, just because I wanted to give continuation to this great experience that I was building myself as through the work I was doing.

Within this I realize that it’s not about ‘bashing’ what I’ve done or now see it as pointless or useless as those are all definitions I now see and understand stem from having remained in the polarity opposite of loving it, making it special and unique – so this way I am able to now stand one and equal to any ‘artistic creation’ or ‘artwork’ in itself within the realization that it’s no different to any other thing we have created as human beings – be it a concept, a tool, a house, a business, a baby, an entire world-system – all of these are creations that entailed a creative and intellectual process in them, so that doesn’t make them ‘art works’ per se, because we’ve defined ‘art’ within a specific ‘realm’ of human creations which is how we developed the whole ‘specialness’ around it, wherein if we genuinely expand creation to anything we do, anything we say and think, then we will genuinely live as self-creators of ourselves, our world without having to tag it as ‘work of art’ since it will be a creation within the principles that each one can recognize and embrace individually: self creation in self-awareness, self responsibility, letting go of the pondering process of the individual as ‘special’ and instead focus on our creative, physical abilities that we have as human beings – both physically and mentally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see ‘art’ as no different to any other failed relationship wherein it seemed as if from one day to the other I simply no longer have anything to do with the person or situation and without further communication or understanding of why we parted ways, it’s simply a ‘breakup’ of sorts wherein I have generated the usual experience of ‘not wanting to see the thing or person again’ and overall avoidance toward the point/person in my life as if that was a clear way to deal with it. I realize that this is mostly suppressing the problem, suppressing what caused the breakup and believe that just by not thinking of it or avoiding looking into the point I am doing myself a favor when in fact it’s the opposite – there more I leave it ‘unresolved’ the more it becomes this ‘confusing’ thing, a mulling around that I experience toward the point or person, because I hadn’t clarified or structured my position or stance toward that person or point in my reality and as such I turn it into something I had to overall try and ‘erase’ without further consequence.

I realize now that I cannot ‘hide’ from these type of situations that I believed I had ‘dealt with’ or I had ‘walked through’ in this process in relation to art – as I realize that I hadn’t entirely clarified the self-corrective process in relation to ‘who I am’ toward art or creative process done by myself or others.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to at times go into a diatribe of should I or shouldn’t I go to see this exhibition or movie or concert just because of seeing it as pointless, useless or a way to ‘activate my excitement’ without realizing that the polarity relationship of resistance was created because of all the definitions I had still held in separation of myself, such as the experiences I’d had when looking at certain paintings or movies or music – and within this believing that I had to ‘quit it’ no different to a drug that I had to let go for once and for all in order to not have to be ‘enticed’ by it once again and ‘get lost’ in it.

Now I see, realize and understand that these ‘fears’ of consequences if I would ‘delve’ into the artistic creation, were all based on the initial Desires I had placed or attributed to art and artistic creations of myself and others – therefore the sole creator of this inner conflict is obviously myself, my mind, my past habits and my apparent inability to conciliate my relationship with art to see it for what it is: matter, colors, sounds, images that I can look at in a way that is no different to appreciating or even enjoying any other part of this reality – and within that if an artistic creation can provide any support to this process of self-realization: that’s great, that’s a ‘plus’ point in relation to what I see is necessary for us to realize in this world – but, in no way does it mean that because an artwork, a film, or certain music aren’t related to a process of self-realization or ‘changing the world’ will it make it useless and pointless as those are solely my own beliefs, projections and even bitterness based on the polarity relationship I had created toward art in this love-hate paradigm, which is absolutely unnecessary once that I realize that it’s all about me letting go of still holding a relationship to art as something ‘special’ as that’s why I then kept separating ‘art’ or ‘artistic creations’ from the rest of the world and reality and people/beings in it, just because in my mind I have developed this judgmental filter toward anything that looks like, sounds like, works like something ‘artistic.’ Lol which is kind of funny and rather contradictory when understanding that separation is created by myself in my mind and I cannot advocate being one and equal to everything if there’s still a special love-hate relationship toward something or someone.

I realize that through stopping participation in judging/defining ‘art’ within a special bubble, then I can rather focus at looking, understanding and comprehending any part of reality including ‘artistic works’ for the human creation it is, for the intent it has and essentially assess that in the same manner and way that I asses a person, a person’s words, any other part of our reality, how we interact, how we create our relationships etc. And this is thus a way to stop holding the specialness-towards-art construct and start seeing it for what it is: another part of our world as our creation that we now have to take responsibility for it all ourselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to regret my decision to drop out of my initial first available career as linguistics as I see that that could’ve supported more in relation to processes of education and supporting others to develop effective language in a professional manner – and instead leave to pursue an artistic career that I mostly do not see myself as ‘following through’ with – at least not in such ‘artistic circles’ – because I’ve realized that I have now a direction that I’ve decided to take on in my life which has to do with being able to support myself and other individuals to become self-directive, self-responsible, self-honest human beings that can in turn no matter what we do, where we are, we are able to stand as living principles of self-creation that can be supportive in any field or profession in our lives.

This implies that I let go of the regret, guilt or shame for my choices in life, for the time I’ve perceived as ‘wasted’ or the ‘disillusionment’ that I created toward ‘art’ as a career in itself, which was all created in my mind and as such I take responsibility for it, to see it for what it was and now that I have such studies as foundation, I can also see what I can take from it, what I learned from it that can be implemented within the current process and direction in my life that I’ve decided to take on – and within this, understand my choices in life based on the context and time of my life when I made them. It is rather obvious that If the ‘who I am’ right now was ten years younger, I would have probably made different decisions in my life – however, also making those faux-passes have allowed me to learn from my mistakes and that this is actually stemming from fear of seeing ‘me as an artist as a failure’ because of not completing the whole ‘road to become an artist’ and so

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to actually create regret about my choices in life, without realizing that it’s actually stemming from me having wanted to ‘take the right road’ from the beginning, not wanting to fail, not wanting to be seen as a failure as an artist, or a drop out or vanish from other people’s lives as ‘she became weird and stopped doing art’ type of judgment as I see and realize that these are all judgments that I’ve created toward myself and that I now see, realize and understand that they have no point in being here ‘as me’ in my mind, because I am fully aware of the decisions I am now making in my life, being certain about the outcome and purpose that I am dedicating my life to and within this also not solidifying ‘the way’ to do it as something immovable or being non flexible in believing that ‘this is all I’ll ever do’ – as that creates a general rigidity that I’ve also seen the consequences thereof when I have to ‘break the definition’ or ‘break the pattern’ and kind of eat my own words and decisions. I realize that I am at a certain stage wherein the foundation of who I am, what I’ve decided to be and become as a person that stands as a living example of what it means to apply principles of life in equality, of self-responsibility, of integrity, of self-honesty, of changing one’s living patterns, is what I have decided within myself to do and live till the end of my life.

Now this doesn’t imply that I forcefully have to ‘fit’ my schooling-career into it or else, but see the multiple possibilities of what we can do and how we can apply our skills, talents and knowledge for self supportive purposes in this world, and step out of any rigidity within ‘having certain career’ only. I have also realized that the process I’m walking is that of self-creation: recreating myself after a deconstruction of who I have been in order to now integrate living principles that are supportive for ourselves as individuals that can now take self-responsibility for our creation.

 

When and as I see myself generating and overall experience of resistance or judgment or even rejection toward ‘art’ or ‘artistic expressions’ I stop myself and breathe. I realize that such experiences recreate my belief and construct of ‘failed relationship with art’ which only exists as a construct of memories, experiences, ideals and beliefs of myself toward art – and as such as I realize this I can immediately stop any judgment and experience toward the word ‘art’ or ‘artistic’ or ‘artist’ in order to see physicality for what it is, whether it is human beings, or matter with colors, or images, or sounds and images, or actions that are simply human creations that I can assess in a similar way in which I asses everything else and everyone else in my reality – no more, no less.

 

When and as I see myself experiencing guilt, shame, regret for my self-defined ‘failed’ choices in life in terms of careers and studies, I stop and I breathe – I realize this stems from the fear of being seen as a failure or a drop out which are only judgments I’ve created within my mind, the fear of not being ‘successful’ at what I was meant to do simply because I didn’t even follow through with it/ didn’t do the actual work to get that which is also another point to realize here how I decided to not invest myself on the traditional forms of art-creation and instead directed myself toward self-education within a context that is entirely new and doesn’t even have a proper ‘institutional name’ with which to ‘justify’ to others what I do now– without realizing that I don’t have to ‘be’ something/a definition for others as I am well aware of how I spend my life, my every day, what I work with, who I work with, for what purpose and what my aims are in it all – therefore I stop wanting to justify myself and my decisions toward others and focus on rather assessing and evaluating myself based on the principles, objectives and decisions I’ve made to dedicate myself to this process in the form of support, education, proposals for change that can be implemented at an individual and global level.

 

I commit myself to no longer re-create any form of pattern of experiences either positive or negative around ‘art’ or ‘artists’ or judge them as useless because of being ‘artists’ or such – as those are only judgments/tags in my mind –and instead see the point of creation for what it is, as a physical or intellectual creative process and as everything, investigate all things and take what’s best. So within this it is also to commit myself to make use of formal ways of doing art in order to share a particular message or understanding that I realize is supportive for ourselves as human beings in this world and necessary within the context of the changes that we require to give direction to if we want to continue living in this world. So within this

I commit myself to give priority to the points that I see are most relevant and a matter of survival when it comes to creating solutions to the problems in this world as that is what I have personally decided to do – working at an individual and collective level to present solutions, to walk them myself and so co-operate in the process of self-realization in our world. This is what I have decided to do which in no way it means that it is what I think everyone else should also do in relation to their relationship to arts as each person’s process is different and to me within the context I’ve placed it, stepping aside from the usual definition of ‘creating art’ also means focusing on being in the world, in the system, understanding it, redefining it, considering how to build our lives and our interactions in a more supportive way and not just trying to get an experience out of it as my previous definitions of art.

I realize that I can redefine art as what I do within this process of self-creation, but that is merely for academic purposes and in no way does it mean I am trying to justify or define the fact that I want to ‘keep being an artist’ but, If I have to justify what I do to academics, then for sure it’s self-creation process as my own work of art, while realizing within myself that a definition does not really ‘define’ or ‘limit’ who we really are, but I can play the role without getting lost in it again.

 

Will continue….

 

 

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387. The Love/Hate Relationship with Art

Here we go…

I require to open up – again – the relationship with art. I’ve noticed that I created some sort of past bad relationship experience with it, similar to the ones that I’ve had with people throughout my life wherein there were things unsaid, situations undirected and just cutting it up from one day to another without further communication. I realize I’ve done this with art creation and the general regret I’ve had in terms of the decision I took some 8 years ago to go to art school and actually drop out from my first choice which was linguistics and which would have probably been a lot more supportive for me to have as a degree than arts, and so there goes regret as well for the choices I made in the delusion of ‘I want to express myself ’ and limit that definition to only ‘arts’ and specifically visual arts. To begin with, a disclaimer here is to understand that I am walking/writing out my frame of mind and that whichever judgment I place here in relation to arts/artists/creative processes in art is what I’ve conjured up throughout time and self-reflection about my decisions in life and in no way does this imply an actual ‘bashing’ as all of these judgments, ideas, perceptions, conceptions will be self-forgiven.

 

The Illusion in this world is my responsibility

It’s been a bit over 10 years when I first begun painting and the experience within that was that of enjoyment when being able to pull out everything that I would usually write in creating these images/paintings that I then started defining as ‘who I am’ and within that, already beginning to define and limit my future according to wanting to be an artist, to be able to write or paint or play music or anything that had to do with what I assumed would enable me to express myself and at the same time, be able to instigate some sort of change in the world.

I’ve mostly walked throughout the years the ‘emotional’ aspect to art and my decisions to be an artist in order to not have to ‘be in the system’ and not have to face it, and not have to deal with a lot of people, being able to stand in the ‘background’ so to speak, like someone with ‘special needs’ or ‘special mind’ and ‘special interests’ hidden in a room behind some canvass or else, yet at the same time having the works themselves get to as many people as possible…. So that’s the type of idea of a nice, lavish lifestyle I was pursuing some 8 years ago, and I was quite on the ‘good track’ getting some initial points of recognition that also led me to see the ‘fame’ for what it was and really question myself if that is what I really wanted: to have some pictures in some room in another place in this world seen by other people and be glorified by how nice they are? Well, I decided it was not the way to do what I was already veering myself to do, which is wanting to ‘Change the world’ and thus using art as the way to change the world…. separation here, yes, in trying to use this one thing to ‘change the world’ without really realizing that nothing/no one can ‘change the world’ in itself, but ourselves.

 

So that’s where we begin.

The idea of Art as an instrument to “Change the World.”

The point is I tried to make My definition of Art fit with what would enable me to use it to demonstrate that it is possible to change the world. However I realized that no matter how many images I make, how many pictures I take, how many great ideas I would have I was entirely mostly having an imaginative outflow of how this could operate without ever really landing it into any serious/real project. I always kept everything at a low-fi level because right after the first year in Art school, I discovered Desteni and my interests veered dramatically – hence the ‘shutting down’ of any pursue to further my career to make a name of myself etc. However little did I know that as I’ve seen throughout time, many artists or creative people are the ones that have been able to conceive new ways of how to develop a society that is better for everyone. Somehow people related to art are at the head of certain movements like the proposition for a Basic Income by Enno Schmidt who is an artist. The example I’ve been able to see with a more ‘landed’ discourse on social change is Joseph Beuys that dared to propose an economic, political and social change through the realization that such change begins with self, using one’s thoughts and actions as the tools with which to sculpt ourselves and so becoming the change that we want to see in this world, by understanding the interdependent relationships we have toward one another and our necessity to establish a genuine economy that reflects the true inputs of the real capital – human work/intellect or applied intellect and the use of resources to provide a dignified living to everyone in a particular society/environment- which means everyone should be equally involved in this.

“Social Sculpture, a concept and medium the artist devised and later theorized in “I am Searching for Field Character” (1973), which articulates his belief in the creative capacity of every in-dividual to shape society through participation in cultural, political, and economic life. With his proclamation that “EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ART-IST,” poised to join others in the construction of “A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART,” Beuys reprised the fervor and axiomatic language of manifestos written by avant-garde artists in the early twentieth century. This promulgation expanded what art could be by acknowledging the viewer’s ability to co-create meaning alongside the artist and, consequently, placed the production of art and knowledge within the scope of the viewer just as much as that of the artist.” – Joseph Beuys – Organization for Direct Democracy by Referendum

 

He went on as far as creating direct democratic referendums as part of his work of art and forming part of a political party, as well as founding a school that was aimed at providing the necessary platform for people to continue the work of social sculpture – which unfortunately I haven’t seen any further fruition from it. He also went on with economists and discussed the concept and idea/symbol of money and with that book ‘What is Money?’ realizing that the idea of social, political and economic change is not an entirely dissociated idea from an artist’s field of work. He also even funded an educational institution which is part of his legacy to continue understanding the multidisciplinary processes that education should involve.

It is so that having the ability to question more, to question reality, to analyze it in its complexity from the ‘eye of an artist’ can lead us all to become better social scientists,   questioning things that have become automated in our reality: money, politics, education, social structures, words and their definitions, mass media and its power to brainwash everyone… then I found people like Guy Debord and Marshall McLuhan who completed the narrative in relation to the world system as the reflection of ourselves, of our ‘revolutions’ as failed attempts to change something that first should be changed at an individual level – and this all made sense, I am grateful for having read these individuals to confirm what I was at the same time walking with/as part of Desteni as well as Foucault on his first chapter in Madness and Civilization about the Ship of the Fools or Stultifera Navis wherein every person that would be defined as ‘crazy/ mad/ eccentric’ would be ousted from society along with every other individual that would simply not be willing to conform to the norm or be defined as mentally insane. I could relate to all of this, however it was all still too defined within the ‘artistic realm’ and so what I did is that upon realizing that ‘art’ for now is ‘just another sector of society’ and almost another cult/religion in itself, I tried to dissociate myself from such tag just because I had judged it as pretentious and ‘special,’ because that is how I came to judge myself or who/what I was going to ‘become’ as an individual if I hadn’t actually stopped myself from upgrading and accumulating all of this definitions onto the ‘artistic persona’ I was aiming at becoming.

I’m also glad that I’ve done that because then the whole ‘specialness’ and ‘uniqueness’ idea of myself that I had about me and that I believed that I should be ‘recognized for’ in the world has been mostly vanished. But after that, there’s  a ‘void’  left in terms of the relationship to art/creative expression as I mostly simply stopped it altogether and wanted to have– apparently – nothing to do with it, which involved me having finished also school in Arts where most of the time I was already knowing that I wasn’t going to become an ‘artist’ in the most traditional sense of the word. I learned about many points wherein artists have participated in ‘revolutionary movements’ but certainly it is no different to how any artist at the moment goes out and paints murals about Snowden, Manning and Assange to glorify them as heroes and shouts at the front of some parliamentary building demanding change… which is absolutely futile.

 

 

So the disillusionment with arts have to do with My Own expectations about it. How I thought that this was ‘the way’ to change the world and of course I didn’t follow through with ‘becoming an artist’ in the traditional sense which I then perceived as myself already ‘opting out’ of it all and seeing the sheer idea of dedicating myself to ‘create art’ as utterly selfish, without realizing how much I had desired ‘that’ to be my reality before. I’ve also been recently sharing about these points with people, explaining how I’m not proud of the decisions I made earlier on in my life and how I would not recommend anyone to study arts. I do however not say ‘don’t study arts’ but simply place my own expectations, my own experience, my decision to do something else and how such studies were a nice platform but not real tools to do what I am doing now. So when I find ‘artists’ defined as such, there’s an attempt to me to see if they also see the futility that I see in art as well – well this happened with one specific person in one specific moment.

A Spell to Ward off the Darkness is the title of a documentary/film that is mostly existential in nature and more like an ‘art film’ than documentary – even though I agree with Ben Russell, one of the directors, on how an objective documentary doesn’t really exist as there’s always a ‘frame’ that is defined by the one filming/directing, so from that perspective yes it’s not really ‘objective.’ However I did notice that this movie was entirely aimed at creating an emotional experience about it, with majestic landscapes, very little dialogue and loud black metal music at the end. I had the opportunity to ask a question to Ben after the screening and when I realized that my theory of how and why Black Metal emerged ( lol ) was nowhere near their intentions within this movie, and he veered off into something else I saw myself judging the individual as ‘typical artist’ that responds with quite a lot of rhetorical rubbish before getting to answer the question. It didn’t end up there, I wrote him back an email essentially asking him whether he considered art was meant to be a hammer with which to shape the world, to prove that we can change it. And then I got quite a bold and rather supportive reply from him which made me realize that I was being an ego myself trying to impose onto other artists/film makers My idea of what art should be, and how if their creations were merely ‘emotional’ then they were useless to what I’ve defined ‘the purpose’ of art.

I realize that after this brief exchange with him where I had certainly ‘demanded’ some answers from him about his intent on his film, he essentially told me that maybe this wasn’t a text/film for me, and that left it very clear how I was trying to make such film fit my standards of what art should be and be used for, instead of it being a creative process in itself.  I also see and realize that I’ve become a ‘victim’ of my own judgments, my own definitions and so I’ve generated a rigidity about what art was supposed to be, what art didn’t ‘fulfill’ within me and thus justify the reasons why I got to see art as entirely useless and self-centered activity. These are all judgments of course that should be seen for what they are, my own creation in order to become my own ‘word – redefiner’ – (see previous post on Rumsfeld) – in order to make of my decision to not further any artistic endeavors as the ‘right thing to do’ and so justify it with now ‘bashing’ artistic views that are not the same as ‘my own’ somehow so as to make my decision sound right and be righteous about my decision. This is not only the desire to be right about this, but also imposing the same mind-frames with which we have created religions and beliefs in the past, and we’re definitely here to stop such knowledge and information rigidity.

 

Also, the point here is not to go into the usual ‘extremes’ I would tend to go into when quitting/stopping/halting something wherein the entire love-hate relationship is generated. And this is quite the perfect example of how we create ‘hate’ – and even if in my case I wasn’t emotionally ‘hating’ art –  when our initial expectations about something/someone are not met and so, we become the epitome of ‘not wanting to know anything about’ that which we had previously set a high standard upon. This implies also the pattern of ‘blaming’ it, blaming apparently ‘art’ for not fulfilling or satisfying my initial intentions, without realizing that it was me that wanted to first make of art my ‘way out’ of ‘the system’ or a way to evade it, and when realizing I really can’t do that, then I simply believed that I had to ‘let go’ of it overall and completely –  without realizing that this is no different to just running away from a relationship that ‘didn’t work out’ without first taking the time to understand Why it didn’t work out or how and that means that through understanding the problem, we can also create solutions.

My overall attitude to this all, however, was within the mentality of not wanting to create anything but still be interested in looking art, admiring paintings or other artists and kind of playing the game of I like it but I shouldn’t like it – I mean, it is quite an unnecessary game that I create in my mind just because I had previously given too much value onto ‘art’ and what it ‘meant to me’ and how my entire life was supposed to be ‘intertwined’ around art, and how the moment I started dissociating myself from it it meant like a literal relationship breakup, when it should Not be like that at all. I mean if I had criticized this types of relationships between individuals, how hadn’t I seen that I’ve been living the exact same pattern with my relationship to ‘art’ and within that every other person that I related myself to from the art-vein of my life-experience? It doesn’t make sense as that implies I resist ‘it’/them which implies I hold a dear relationship of separation. So this is a till here no further.

 

I have to then point out the practicality of the decision here which I might have written out before but here it comes again so as to iron out any wrinkles on my side. It is no doubt that we all can create things, be expressive in any artistic endeavor and enjoy the process of creating it and sharing it with the world etc. – however at the moment in our world and reality, I do see it as rather impractical to be fully dedicated to the creation of art/plastic arts specifically when there’s so much to get done in this world in relation to education, to understanding who/what we are as human beings in our minds, how we direct in our lives, how we’ve created this world system and through understanding it all, be able to now establish and conduct solutions at an individual and collective level – and this is what I’ve decided to do. However I see that even if for me this is ‘clear’ there’s still a shadow of a doubt in relation to how people ask me ‘what am I doing’ and within this believing that I should be speaking about the many paintings or etchings or whatever I’ve created as a result of my work as ‘an artist’ in the formal/traditional sense of the word.  So I come upfront and explain how I’m not doing that and what I dedicate myself to, which sounds ‘interesting’ to most but I see that as long as I still hold on a judgment about this as me ‘having wasted my time in art school’ or ‘not developing myself as an artist’ then no matter who/what questions are asked, I’ll still experience that shadow of a doubt simply because I’ve judged it as a failed decision in my life.

 

The dictatorship of definitions

And this I might have shared before but it’s relevant to bring it up again as it’s been coming up many more times, as well as with what ‘I do’ with my life since I mostly work on the internet and there is currently no institutionalized career that defines what I do within this process at Desteni to be a point of support for myself and others in this world to walk this process which I do entirely see as vital and the most important thing to dedicate ourselves to in this world, which is a necessary step if we ever want everyone to genuinely enjoy an artistic lifestyle of creating/expressing in a world where hunger, wars, poverty, corruption, greed and a lousy economic system can be no more. All changes begin within self and so I have entirely decided to step aside from my artistic endeavors to dedicate myself to this process of Education, of being an example of this change myself, of supporting other people walking this process, of investigating economic and political solutions, of sharing/talking about these necessary changes at an individual and collective level, as that is how we can then all as human beings take self-responsibility for the world in shambles we have created – so that is what our artistry has been defined by, and I’m in no way proud of the world we’ve wrought here.

 

 

I have also said before how this process in itself is a self-creation process, hence I am my own work of art. However the ‘art’ definition here is obviously not the common one and that’s probably my inner dissonance which I am here to straighten up and redefine so that I stop separating myself from what I’ve defined as ‘artistic creation’ in the most traditional sense and what I ‘should’ be creating,  and rather integrate the principle of self-creation in whatever thought, word, deed as myself including the activities I’ve defined as merely ‘artistic’ such as ‘creative writing,’ shooting videos, painting pictures, taking pictures and lol even as I write this it is like oh shit that’s all just pointless drama-creations of me, who I was before. However that’s how I’ve limited them to be instead of seeing how visual art is quite a powerful way to provide/promote a message and a more digestible or ’friendly’ way to explain living principles through images, films to make them more palpable – whereas with just theory not everyone might be able to find it or understand it.

 

So, this is to see how it is about expanding myself to see the potential that exists in everything that is already here in this world. I would be my own worst enemy if I would define art or being an artist as something pointless or mere egotistic – it is nothing more and nothing less than a definition and judgment, instead of considering that as anything and every other job/profession in this world can be seen for what it is, for its potential, its redefinition to be self-supportive and to use it as a tool to provide ways to look at the world in a different manner and how to ‘eat it’ meaning how to live it, to understand it, to embrace it. That’s what I’ve also noticed is lacking within Art.

 

 

Art as a tool for change?

It’s relatively ‘easy’ to identify the patterns or the problems, and represent them – but driving the problem through to the solutions is mostly always missing. So that’s the kind of principles of self-creation that I’d like to contribute with in relation to art/art-theory if you want to call it that which is not limited to artists or people that study art, but to any human being that wants to become an instrument themselves, a tool with which to conduct and become the change that I realize is necessary in this world. I’ve identified the problems, so I’m working on the solutions and that is no physical ‘work of art’ but if I take on Sol Lewitt’s paragraphs of art in relation to making of the process itself, the structure, the plan of a work of art the ‘piece’ in itself or in other words “If the artist carries through his idea and makes it into visible form, then all the steps in the process are of importance. The idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product. All intervening steps –scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations– are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.”

 

…then my entire life is also then that: self-creation and supporting other people’s self-creative processes. Lol, am I theoretically justifying myself as an ‘artist’ here? Can be, but why not? I’ve read such blatant bullshit in art-theory that expanding art-theory to self-creation within principles of life in Equality, of Self-Responsibility, of Dignity, Integrity, producing solutions is quite the most meaningful thing we can do as human beings after centuries of emotional, material or conceptual glorification in art. Time for Life to be supported in everything that we do beginning at a thought level and that begins with ourselves, with becoming the master-pieces that I’ve seen and realized I sought to ‘create’ outside of myself or to use ‘art’ as some kind of alter-ego platform to glorify myself through the eyes of others. Self-honesty is required within art, understanding why one wants to create art and if the purpose, aim or objective and starting point of creation is actually aligned with a ‘higher purpose’ or goal which is then how I am seeing that art can be used to educate people, to wake people up, to provide new understandings and ways to understand, behave and co-exist  in the world – but that still has to be lived by and applied by each one of us first as first ‘test-runs’ in this process.

 

I realize there’s really ‘nothing’ that can ‘change you’ as that would then be the idea of this ‘magic red pill’ that you simply take it and understand everything about the Matrix and reality, the mind, who we are as our mind, the world-systems we’ve governed ourselves by, etc. So, in that sense what we can all do is become the example of what it is to walk such process, to provide and produce educational materials/writings/videos or whichever ‘tool’ we can use to support others in the inevitable process that is here as our process of realizing who we really are as life. Easily said, a whole other story to understand it as to what it in fact implies.

 

I’ll continue with walking Self-Forgiveness on specific points mentioned here, as well as the Self Corrective Statements to redirect my relationship formed with art/artistic creation and artists themselves so as to no longer limit myself and others through my own definitions of art or ‘what art should be’ and instead focus on my own process of self-creation and the endeavor I’ve taken on to be that point of support for others as well, a birthing-as-life supporter which is what I in fact really wanted to do since I can remember. I can use all tools available in this world for this purpose without limiting myself within it and that’s also the process of expansion here that is necessary for me to clarify and structure as well.

 

” Economics is not only a money making principle. It can be a way of production to fulfill the demands of people all over the world. Capital is human kind’s ability in work, not just money. Thus economics includes the creativity of people. Creativity equals Capital” – Joseph Beuys

 

 

Fuck it, Pollock has done it all  – 2005

 

Watch:

• Art and Politics – Living Income Guaranteed

• 2011 Art in Equality: Be your own Work of Art

 

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