"...my work is most successful when I'm falling apart a little bit in front of you..."--- Julie Tolentino.
This is the phrase I've been looking for within my own muses. I'm attempting to unravel myself in front of you in order to show you how to unravel your self. I become your object for self discovery. The vulnerability I'm catering to, displaying more than hearts on sleeves or candid cliches, is a developmental tactic. Fighting off my own barriers has been liberating, though a seeming producer of anxiety attacks and hurtful epiphanies of displaced moments in time.
I've long thought that the give/take of interactions warranted an equilibrium. Physicality shows that in speaking/listening we mediate our language through our body: hand gestures, breathing patterns, heart rates, and facial expressions. Conversation, the dialectic exchange/receive procedure personified, is naturally something of a give and take, push and pull entity. As person a enters person b's space, person b natural moves back a bit (though how much is dependent on the individual's space bubble/comfort with confrontation).
This banter has always provided thought provoking insights into the human condition. The fragility even the strongest of persona's possess within defense mechanisms and other insecurities are amplified and often projected.
Undercutting projections is what I am attempting to do, through somewhat of a middleman scenario, within my work. Two theories meshed together in potentiality.
One: to critique an existing situation reaffirm its existence. What does this mean? Over exaggerate and expand upon what's obviously at work. Re-itteration in re-presentation [re-representation].
I've often brainstormed that I should mix a little Lewis Carroll into my work. Communicative exchange to have a use rate--- perhaps tie a little tag to my neck that says "Use Me" or "Share Me" or "Neglect Me" or "Watch Me" just as the liquid in Alice in Wonderland says "Drink Me" and the biscuits say "Eat Me". Each produces an action that in turn produces a chain of reactions. This is very much how I interpret conversation, at both its most basic and complex levels. By drawing more attention to the purpose of the exchange we begin to critique the event: macro and micro, motif and motivation.
Two: to critique an existing situation represent in opposition. A more normative response to understanding or critique. The offer of something different to either make a point concrete or crumbling is a frequented method of debate.
This is me when I openly succumb to vulnerability in front of an audience, open myself to objectification (sometimes passively demanding it), in order to provide a better understanding of vulnerability as a universal trait. I become of screen for projection, unidentifiable as an individual until after the performance, stripped and white washed until the only thing left to see is a reflection of the viewer. Opposing any identity, forces the projection, and then (especially in intimate pieces) becomes a critique of the individual itself. Simultaneously, vulnerability is the loudest of what is being viewed. This opposition to that stasis of what we interpret the 'self' to be (reference phrases and connotations of strong sense of self or concrete beliefs or rooted opinions) in turn critiques from an all over approach.
A multiplicitous identity is hard to place, as multiplicitous often seems synonymous with instability. Plurality, however, is hardly without root or foundation. The whole may seem shaking when denounced to parts but with a multiplicitous media, mediation, and motivation the bonds prevail the whole to be consequential to its various parts. The dialogue begins in a presence through absence. We escapade through muted audio and shouting caps locked subtitles. We dig to the roots. We find the stability branching off in every direction under the ground.
21 July 2010
20 May 2010
Yours Not Have Myself
I've been winning a losing battle for some time now. Day-to-day I've been watching the numbers flip in an arbitrary fashion and this entire time I've convinced myself losing was winning and vice versa. The relativity I'm feeling extends down many an understanding: one of family, one of banal circumstance, and dare I say the relativity of physics.
I'm grounded in this gasoline haze, hoping the trees will sway into a cartoon form or the breeze will dissipate into writing. I'm loosing grips as far as I'm accessing new handles. I'm losing touch while gaining ground. I no longer can tell which way the signs are pointing and I'm just failing to contain my beliefs "that I'm fine, everything is okay....". I'm losing strength, gaining speed, and heading for a confrontation.
I feel. Even when there is void or absence a presence is created. A silence prompts so much giberish that talking is all the better. The bearing of weakness, quite transforming to a bare weakness, is neither making me stronger, more reflective, or more okay with the situations.
I'm well-adjusted. A keen social sense and placation to a P.C appropriation surfacing above the internal instability. I've stood here for so long quivering, I've been born and re-born a thousand times in the eyes that pass me, judgment, and ridicule. I let you see yourself and have often found that those who find distaste in a first impression often have swirled themselves twice over in admonishment.
I'm dealing. I want to scream and I've pruned in the rain as a result of my own demise. I've reduced to tears and have trembled under the weight of the footsteps that pass and subsequent curious eyes that are too busy to do anything but graze. I'm an obstacle, to them and myself. A burden that must be trespassed in order to go on through the day, through life.
I'm frustrated with my lack and furthermore yours. I feel like all I'm feeling are excuses that don't belong or aren't contextualized. When I ball up, it's an invitation. I like your problems more than my own, because it means that I'll have something else to roll around in my mouth when the silence seeps in.
I'm balancing, best as I can. Yet, I feel unable to comprehend anything but a distant regret or a lackadaisical attempt at disavowal. You don't want me here and frankly I want to leave. Just like I've wanted to scream or stand on a chair or project across the room how much it hurt to be tossed aside. I've wanted to apply a sense of confession to the feeling, or lack thereof, of self worth. I haven't spoken for myself because I haven't deserved it.
I have use value. What can I say? Reuse. Reduce. Recycle. Patterns are an easy routine.
When the words float so elegantly on my tongue, the traffic clears and the sounds I have either ignored or been ignorant to for so long come sprinting (as I'm sure they will) onto a nearby ear...then perhaps we will finally make sense of this wreck.
I've never been NOT okay...or maybe I've just been playing on double negatives. Maybe this is me, and maybe this is what I've been reassuring myself I will always have.
I'm grounded in this gasoline haze, hoping the trees will sway into a cartoon form or the breeze will dissipate into writing. I'm loosing grips as far as I'm accessing new handles. I'm losing touch while gaining ground. I no longer can tell which way the signs are pointing and I'm just failing to contain my beliefs "that I'm fine, everything is okay....". I'm losing strength, gaining speed, and heading for a confrontation.
I feel. Even when there is void or absence a presence is created. A silence prompts so much giberish that talking is all the better. The bearing of weakness, quite transforming to a bare weakness, is neither making me stronger, more reflective, or more okay with the situations.
I'm well-adjusted. A keen social sense and placation to a P.C appropriation surfacing above the internal instability. I've stood here for so long quivering, I've been born and re-born a thousand times in the eyes that pass me, judgment, and ridicule. I let you see yourself and have often found that those who find distaste in a first impression often have swirled themselves twice over in admonishment.
I'm dealing. I want to scream and I've pruned in the rain as a result of my own demise. I've reduced to tears and have trembled under the weight of the footsteps that pass and subsequent curious eyes that are too busy to do anything but graze. I'm an obstacle, to them and myself. A burden that must be trespassed in order to go on through the day, through life.
I'm frustrated with my lack and furthermore yours. I feel like all I'm feeling are excuses that don't belong or aren't contextualized. When I ball up, it's an invitation. I like your problems more than my own, because it means that I'll have something else to roll around in my mouth when the silence seeps in.
I'm balancing, best as I can. Yet, I feel unable to comprehend anything but a distant regret or a lackadaisical attempt at disavowal. You don't want me here and frankly I want to leave. Just like I've wanted to scream or stand on a chair or project across the room how much it hurt to be tossed aside. I've wanted to apply a sense of confession to the feeling, or lack thereof, of self worth. I haven't spoken for myself because I haven't deserved it.
I have use value. What can I say? Reuse. Reduce. Recycle. Patterns are an easy routine.
When the words float so elegantly on my tongue, the traffic clears and the sounds I have either ignored or been ignorant to for so long come sprinting (as I'm sure they will) onto a nearby ear...then perhaps we will finally make sense of this wreck.
I've never been NOT okay...or maybe I've just been playing on double negatives. Maybe this is me, and maybe this is what I've been reassuring myself I will always have.
30 March 2010
The Whole Hole Returns Wholeheartedly
My thoughts are racing, almost yelling at me to do something. Just something that will make these circles actualized in a presence of social worth. Retreating, I'm finding it difficult to hold on. Suddenly, I'm slipping back into the hole, the bad habits, the thoughtless thoughts and in differential distance. I'm becoming the distance and walls have been re-erected so fast that I'm caught in the middle of the blockades. Half-in, Half-out...incessantly falling from the sky and crashing with the tides. I'm crying and stopping and blocking and wrecking and writing and wishing all the same. So well hidden, so well controlled, so long hiding, and so adjusted to adjusting. Breaks. Break Away. Breathe.
The words and confessions so far into my throat that the oxygen has stopped mid-escape. Between the bars, my catharsis is silenced and sneaking. The hairs on my neck stand as it breathes for me and becomes me. I feel the retreat and I feel the silence. Studying. I'm starting to study again, that vow of silence sleeping upon my lips in hopes of a discovery; the same of which strategic conformity alongside deception steered so long ago.
No one spoke, just as I did not speak. We acted. We acted like everything was fine. We projected that binding as far as the glue did hold whole. We projected the whole when the pieces fell and we were left what we perceived was the whole but was only projection.
We slid. Slide 1 *click* 2 *click* 3 *click* 4... the pieces scattered on the floor with all to see and none to hold for they were no longer pieces---as pieces can be only that which construct a whole and that same whole was what stared us down from that elusive wall, was it not? We stared back blankly at that whole hanging down the wall. We stared quite through the hole purposively.
We pinned down that wall with that whole; squared to the corners of the wall and frame, squared to the binding background, squared to the corners of our eyes and the telos of our soul. Yet, still not quite right in it's squareness it remained, with the remains forgotten beneath it. And this is how it ended? Purposively. Without resolve and without fight....but with the frightening epiphanic moment that the whole was not right, no matter how squared or opaque or pinning it was to that wall. The whole was just a hole, that didn't hold at all.
And now...now I begin to fall. The whole and hole so blurred that seeing is no longer believing but feeling--that pit that drops inside of you when everything begins to break, when the cracks tear further along the surface, and the calm settles over the nerves. That feeling of non-existance or more so wrong existence; where you remember stable ground but as far as you can tell you've been falling forever--that feeling. That one where your pulse begins to slow, your breathing shallows, and every muscle in your body begins to relax, just as you realize you might need to brace upon that fast approaching impact? As you fall quicker and quicker and harder and faster, it's that feeling of a sickly sweet smile and the muscles that hold it up on a falling face. The feeling of never returning again. The feeling of complacency. The feeling of hiding your hands, never to touch or be touched again, never to taste nor smell, never to fly but only to fall.
This is the feeling of a whole hole returning, wholeheartedly.
The words and confessions so far into my throat that the oxygen has stopped mid-escape. Between the bars, my catharsis is silenced and sneaking. The hairs on my neck stand as it breathes for me and becomes me. I feel the retreat and I feel the silence. Studying. I'm starting to study again, that vow of silence sleeping upon my lips in hopes of a discovery; the same of which strategic conformity alongside deception steered so long ago.
No one spoke, just as I did not speak. We acted. We acted like everything was fine. We projected that binding as far as the glue did hold whole. We projected the whole when the pieces fell and we were left what we perceived was the whole but was only projection.
We slid. Slide 1 *click* 2 *click* 3 *click* 4... the pieces scattered on the floor with all to see and none to hold for they were no longer pieces---as pieces can be only that which construct a whole and that same whole was what stared us down from that elusive wall, was it not? We stared back blankly at that whole hanging down the wall. We stared quite through the hole purposively.
We pinned down that wall with that whole; squared to the corners of the wall and frame, squared to the binding background, squared to the corners of our eyes and the telos of our soul. Yet, still not quite right in it's squareness it remained, with the remains forgotten beneath it. And this is how it ended? Purposively. Without resolve and without fight....but with the frightening epiphanic moment that the whole was not right, no matter how squared or opaque or pinning it was to that wall. The whole was just a hole, that didn't hold at all.
And now...now I begin to fall. The whole and hole so blurred that seeing is no longer believing but feeling--that pit that drops inside of you when everything begins to break, when the cracks tear further along the surface, and the calm settles over the nerves. That feeling of non-existance or more so wrong existence; where you remember stable ground but as far as you can tell you've been falling forever--that feeling. That one where your pulse begins to slow, your breathing shallows, and every muscle in your body begins to relax, just as you realize you might need to brace upon that fast approaching impact? As you fall quicker and quicker and harder and faster, it's that feeling of a sickly sweet smile and the muscles that hold it up on a falling face. The feeling of never returning again. The feeling of complacency. The feeling of hiding your hands, never to touch or be touched again, never to taste nor smell, never to fly but only to fall.
This is the feeling of a whole hole returning, wholeheartedly.
02 March 2010
Embrace in Raining Retrograde
Streets. They careen against the falling sun and straighten out with the rise. A connection. A place we go to find ourselves, to find someone we knew long ago, or to assert who we are; who we think and want to be all at once.
A passage. Time is past. It dies and all we can be is driving. All we can be is driven. All we can be is that state of controlled lost. We listen to our self or we block it out by blaring someone else's words to which some part of us is attached; singing along we make them our own. Grasping to understand, even when we are running. Forward and side to side, but mostly backward. How many times are you returning behind the steering wheel. Creatures of habbit; we work in a retrograded state of return. Turn left at the next light, unless it red then continue straight-- we'll get there some day.
In the passenger seat, I'm a melted shotgun twisting to become the car. Let my eyes be the side window. Let me feel the wind billowing off the lakes. Let it sting and make the tears burn from my eyes as I drive back. 0 to 60 in 20 seconds: I've learned how to operate, how to adapt, how to become the car. Melted and twisted silver frozen behind a seatbelt.
I'm full of blanks; small spark followed in smoke. I redefine constantly and find myself traversing more boarders and using more lines. On the edge, just waiting for a push of encouragement, I've envisioned it. I swear I can hold the feeling without ever experiencing it before; my throat in my stomach, the rush of air, and the deep embrace of dark. It feels squishy and surrounding this forgetfulness, this forgiveness. Squishy and surrounding, but what to do with it?
This is not the time. There is no burning passion, just stinging eyes and I can't seem to see anymore through all the haze. The cold front is coming in and the pressure in my head is building. It's all building toward something I can not see, even with my brights it is hidden for me...from me.
Slips. Slippery slips back in your retrograded return. Who are you now?
Hold me in the asphalt, surround me---- I want to curve with the road for once. Envelope me...
Watch it. Watch the heavy rain dance on-- careen with me, curve with me...
Embrace
A passage. Time is past. It dies and all we can be is driving. All we can be is driven. All we can be is that state of controlled lost. We listen to our self or we block it out by blaring someone else's words to which some part of us is attached; singing along we make them our own. Grasping to understand, even when we are running. Forward and side to side, but mostly backward. How many times are you returning behind the steering wheel. Creatures of habbit; we work in a retrograded state of return. Turn left at the next light, unless it red then continue straight-- we'll get there some day.
In the passenger seat, I'm a melted shotgun twisting to become the car. Let my eyes be the side window. Let me feel the wind billowing off the lakes. Let it sting and make the tears burn from my eyes as I drive back. 0 to 60 in 20 seconds: I've learned how to operate, how to adapt, how to become the car. Melted and twisted silver frozen behind a seatbelt.
I'm full of blanks; small spark followed in smoke. I redefine constantly and find myself traversing more boarders and using more lines. On the edge, just waiting for a push of encouragement, I've envisioned it. I swear I can hold the feeling without ever experiencing it before; my throat in my stomach, the rush of air, and the deep embrace of dark. It feels squishy and surrounding this forgetfulness, this forgiveness. Squishy and surrounding, but what to do with it?
This is not the time. There is no burning passion, just stinging eyes and I can't seem to see anymore through all the haze. The cold front is coming in and the pressure in my head is building. It's all building toward something I can not see, even with my brights it is hidden for me...from me.
Slips. Slippery slips back in your retrograded return. Who are you now?
Hold me in the asphalt, surround me---- I want to curve with the road for once. Envelope me...
Watch it. Watch the heavy rain dance on-- careen with me, curve with me...
Embrace
26 January 2010
Running on Recycled Air pelted by Rain
The sky was dark today, despite the slight raise of temperature. Water fell from all corners of this murky city. Being sensitive to my surroundings or perhaps just part of a universal punch line, my internal reflects the external. Why does this happen? Are we simply just looking for points of assimilation wherever we can see? Wherever we can feel? Today I felt it--
Today I realized I've been feeling it. And maybe tomorrow I will accept that I will continue to be feeling it.
Water; a staple to life, dimensionless, yet will strangle every empty corner beside boundary.
Today I tried to run from water. I wanted to run from life, find refuge in some make believe or a hope that time might run a little slower.
So, yes...it is too true. Today I ran from water but ended up running through it; the drops fell harder, faster, and stronger. Had I walked, my vision wouldn't have blurred form the rain, the drops would roll off carelessly and quite certainly with little trace left behind. Today running was facing them head on. Today the rain was stinging with a tone of truth and an afterthought of bitterness twinged with regret. Today running was staring at my feet to clear my vision because all I really wanted to see was stability. All I wanted to see were the marks I left in the mud. I wanted advancement by standing still and I wanted to stop time by running through it.
Today, running through life, was bounding into puddles of epiphany---What do you know? My feet got wet.
Today life soaked through my shoes, wrapped around my laces, and allowed me to think that I was sprinting out of it. It knew better but, then again, so did I. Now I'm left with wet shoes, statuettes of socks, cold feet, and wasted hours.
And I'll run again, because the thought of staring at my feet just gives me the opportunity to run into something
Today I realized I've been feeling it. And maybe tomorrow I will accept that I will continue to be feeling it.
Water; a staple to life, dimensionless, yet will strangle every empty corner beside boundary.
Today I tried to run from water. I wanted to run from life, find refuge in some make believe or a hope that time might run a little slower.
So, yes...it is too true. Today I ran from water but ended up running through it; the drops fell harder, faster, and stronger. Had I walked, my vision wouldn't have blurred form the rain, the drops would roll off carelessly and quite certainly with little trace left behind. Today running was facing them head on. Today the rain was stinging with a tone of truth and an afterthought of bitterness twinged with regret. Today running was staring at my feet to clear my vision because all I really wanted to see was stability. All I wanted to see were the marks I left in the mud. I wanted advancement by standing still and I wanted to stop time by running through it.
Today, running through life, was bounding into puddles of epiphany---What do you know? My feet got wet.
Today life soaked through my shoes, wrapped around my laces, and allowed me to think that I was sprinting out of it. It knew better but, then again, so did I. Now I'm left with wet shoes, statuettes of socks, cold feet, and wasted hours.
And I'll run again, because the thought of staring at my feet just gives me the opportunity to run into something
12 January 2010
Not the Car but the Road-- a Commentary of Chance *Of Change
The vehicle of life is a tricky thing. Understated in fine tuned curves: it exists as both the box surrounding us, the road beneath us, and the journey we think we have mapped out. Our environment changes us by challenge and the uncanny ability of those anti-shock tires to adapt to a bumpy road or ease over speed bumps at our own pace. But i'm not interested in the vehicle now, maybe later...now i'm interested in the rules of the road.
The lines on the road of life, that guide us along the way, seem opaquely yellow but they lie dormant on the ourfault, excuse me, asphalt. Stagnant in the boarders that define them, we follow their rules. We don't dare to pass over that yellow line for fear that something lurks around the bend. The unknown danger of an oncoming car, an oncoming life, the bright lights of anticipation or warning.
I don't extend this analogy too far, by all means when operating an actual machine STAY INSIDE THE LINES. But when operating within the matrix of life, those yellow lines are not impossible obstacles that leave only conformity in their end result. No, those lines are quite beneath you. They guide almost to a fault where the driver knows exactly where to go, provided an appropriate vision, and really has no free space of chance.
Swerve over the road of life, crash into someone new, leave your mark on the world. Yes, chances are that you may be forgotten, violently erased in the fissure of time and memory, you might just lose who you think you are in the crash...but you might just find something better. If you don't like it, take it in for repair...you are greatly salvageable.
Don't mistake ever changing as continuous negation. View it instead as a plentitude of growth, revisted as needed by memory. Let the oncoming cars enlighten you, not only to their own journey but also to the faults/highlights within your own.
You'll find the greatest impacts come with high speeds and a bit of recklessness. Take a chance, hold your breath, and delight in the unpredictability of off-roading.
The lines on the road of life, that guide us along the way, seem opaquely yellow but they lie dormant on the ourfault, excuse me, asphalt. Stagnant in the boarders that define them, we follow their rules. We don't dare to pass over that yellow line for fear that something lurks around the bend. The unknown danger of an oncoming car, an oncoming life, the bright lights of anticipation or warning.
I don't extend this analogy too far, by all means when operating an actual machine STAY INSIDE THE LINES. But when operating within the matrix of life, those yellow lines are not impossible obstacles that leave only conformity in their end result. No, those lines are quite beneath you. They guide almost to a fault where the driver knows exactly where to go, provided an appropriate vision, and really has no free space of chance.
Swerve over the road of life, crash into someone new, leave your mark on the world. Yes, chances are that you may be forgotten, violently erased in the fissure of time and memory, you might just lose who you think you are in the crash...but you might just find something better. If you don't like it, take it in for repair...you are greatly salvageable.
Don't mistake ever changing as continuous negation. View it instead as a plentitude of growth, revisted as needed by memory. Let the oncoming cars enlighten you, not only to their own journey but also to the faults/highlights within your own.
You'll find the greatest impacts come with high speeds and a bit of recklessness. Take a chance, hold your breath, and delight in the unpredictability of off-roading.
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