You’re looking at a banana without the peel. I’ve been exposed and stripped down to my fruits. Now I’ll be easier to digest. I spoke to a stranger today about many thing, so many things I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole incident. In my life I have not met a lot of people that know how to speak this certain way. To explain how we were speaking, just about every sentence was true from at least three different levels of analysis. That sort of thing becomes hard to keep track of because the conversations can branch inside of those meanings and you have to look for certain wording to know the position a person takes on one particular level, but it might not have any effect on the other, and it still has to make sense on he surface level as a grammatical sentence. I know this sounds like I’m just describing any conversation, but it was a wild ride, a genuine work out. I wasn’t prepared for it either, I was just taking the dog for a walk, then blam, “What are your values on everything and how can we know these are our values?” sort of thing. An interesting argument he introduced me to was, “Can ‘not so’ be voted ‘so’?” If you’re wondering, it can’t, but it’s what our society attempts to do all day everyday. Imagine saying that to a stranger and then talking to them for 20 minutes. There’s no limit to that sort of conversation, and it’s the response to it that lets the other person know what sort of mind they’re dealing with. What most people don’t realize is that their thoughts put things in boxes, which they need to be put into boxes because if you have thoughts strung all around, it’s hard to get anything done. I’ve spent a lot of time in the primordial soup though and have gotten decent enough control over thoughts without prescribing them meaning, but it’s exhausting.
I’m trying to do something here
Good evening, everyone please take your seats, the lesson is about to begin. First off I’d like to start by thanking our esteemed guests for joining us. We have some of the best and brightest, coming in from all over. I can’t even begin to start. Today, I cleaned a lot for some guy that lives on a mountain, it was pretty fun. We talk about all sorts of things and I’m helping him clean up the space around himself because frankly I don’t know if he’s ever thrown something away in his life. He makes lots of paintings though and they’re nice to see and occasionally talk about. I also don’t mind the work. It’s slightly physical and mental in figuring out how to clean this place up. The “one” room we’re working on is larger than the entire house I’m living in and there was barely more than standing room in it before today. We got a nice chunk of that cleared out to where a couple chairs could lay out for people to sit and talk. I get to feel a little accomplished and come home to my house where I can pretty much see 100% of my floors. Other than that it’s just been business as usual, I’ve got live drawing coming up tomorrow, a painting class that starts Monday, and February is figuary where I’ll be practicing figure drawing everyday. I’ve got to sign up for this painting conference I want to go to. That will be a wild event if I attend. We could be looking at some major shifts in my personality this year. Not to mention this will be the first full season with my plants in the ground. You better bet you best bottom biscuit we’ll be blooming beautiful bounties.
Spring is Coming
I’m feeling good right now. I went to therapy today so that was an achievement. I was spitting fire there too. We watched a video and when the teacher was talking about it wondered what year it was made, I was on it. “2015” I said with all the authority of the world. I watched a video about philosophy of art and beauty today, it’s really got all three of my eyes super charged. I feel the need to be doing some paintings. Hopefully that is in my near future, but it requires energy. Drawing is the number one priority
I’ve been wondering what I’d like my story to be lately. If I could be anything, what would I want to be? Mostly a a good person. Making characters in games I always like the paladin class because they weren’t brutish like the barbarian/warrior class, but could still handle themselves in physical combat. They fought for a purpose, paladins could also usually use magic, or in their cases it can often only be healing. My confirmation name was picked after a priest who was also a soldier. It’s funny because I don’t really know much beyond that. I’m going to have to read about him because the actual story could have a huge influence on my life. I’ve started reading the bible recently and that is really interesting. What a wild relationship western culture has with that book. Societies built around teachings next to no one has read. If I want knowledge about what it means to be human, there is no book that should be higher on my reading list. I was also raised Catholic, so there is a lot of guilt about ideas that I don’t even know if they’re really Christian ideas, could just be something a random person said, no one knows unless they actually go searching.
May his words flow through me
Today I wanted to talk about doing little things for yourself and how it builds momentum in life. My friend Jerome asked me a question about what feels like painful cycling form. I told him the first thing I would check is tight hamstrings. If your hamstrings are too tight, it could really mess with your life and he thinks it feels like he has some sort of pelvic tilt. He also works an office job, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to have tight hamstrings. Anyway, I told him to stretch them five mins a day for 30 days and see how he feels. I figured he hadn’t tried it because people don’t usually stretch a lot. The whole incident got us talking about small things making a big difference over time. There is a different between improving and destroying. If left alone for too long the natural order is to destroy, so it’s best to always be fighting the good fight.
It’s strange because I think a lot of people know what’s a good impulse and a bad impulse, but we so often choose the bad one. Maybe we’re playing some sort of larger game, “I’ll take this bad thing here because I know it grants me a good thing here.” Maybe the next challenge is to find the largest game you can handle playing in. Sometimes the largest game you can play in is making sure you’ve eaten that day, I’ve been there, but I’ve been getting a lot of new strength lately, so I’m really looking forward to the future as I continue being able to play more complicated roles in life. The thing is you have to work for yourself so that you’ll even be capable to do what’s asked of you when the time comes. At the same time, that work is what leads to new pastures that will call upon you.
Ring of Wrinkles
Whenever I sit down to write these my brain is instantly spitting out words, I guess that’s the benefit of a habit. Dang, I’ve been doing this almost everyday for over a year, so it really is a habit now. I’ve been drawing everyday for at least 50 days, so it’s pretty cool to be forming that as a habit. They’re both good habits to have, writing and drawing, especially for someone like me that has creative thoughts that needs to get out. Probably why these habits have been beneficial to me is if I don’t get creative energy out, it turns on itself by questioning “What is a question?” That was a line that came up yesterday with John. That type of thinking destroys the fabric around your self. I’d mentioned before problems with the infinite, so there is no bedrock. Another idea we were talking about is the importance of religion because it acts as a bedrock, part of the idea of faith is you can’t prove anything but you hold those beliefs to be true so more can be built on top of it. Otherwise you spend your life questioning everything and go no where.
Anyway the point I was trying to get to before my mind ran away was that I sit down to write this, but have to write the date and my current word count so I know when I’ve done at least 300 words. As soon as I open up the document to start writing, my mind thinks a gun has gone off and we’re off to the races. I’m like, “No, no, get back here” because by the time I’ve written the date my brain is already three sentences in. Now look at me, I’m reaching the end of my writing for the day and I’ve barely expressed my first though. I’ll leave you with this, last night was fun, but socializing with people is exhausting.
Playing the Waiting Game
We’re waiting for John and his wife to come over in an hour. I gave the house a good cleaning today, so that was nice, don’t have to worry about that for awhile. I don’t think I’m going to do Christfest again this year, but when I did that and had the Christmas party it was a good way to do a deep clean twice a year. We didn’t have the Christmas party this year either, so I guess that house needed it. Pretty much what happens during winter is most of the house gets closed off to conserve warmth. We’ve basically only used the bedroom and a living room for months, the rest had some dust accumulation, but nothing too bad. Cleaning the carpets was the big thing I wanted to do, but watching the carpet cleaner I’m a little concerned if the vacuum that sucks up the moisture was working because by the end the collection tank was still fairly empty. I’ll just have to take it to my neighborhood carpet cleaner repairman.
I was working on a drawing of a guy readying a crossbow that had some sort of mechanical drawing. Drawing as in pulling back the string. I like the feeling of the image because crossbows have a metal ring at the end to put your foot through, the foot then provides a counter weight to the pulling of the string. Why I like it is because it gives a little bit of mundane life to an otherwise action oriented character. I need to get a colored piece for Monday anyway, so hopefully I’ll finish it before then. After that I think will kick off Figuary. There are these two YouTube channels that work together for figure drawing everyday in the month of February, so I’ll be doing a lot of that. I’m still working on getting through the videos from last Figuary.
S, C and Straight Lines
Today is going pretty well. I cleaned the carpets today because it hadn’t been done in awhile, but also I’m having my friend John and his wife over for dinner tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun since he was a philosophy major in college and we’ve had two hour conversations that just fly by. Drawing was good today too, I was a little tired from going out last night, but I got through it. I was flipping through the book that I’m studying from because I moved on to a new section that included heads in perspective, which thank goodness for that, but the stuff I’ll be doing in the future looks really exciting too. It’s a shame I won’t be able to finish it all before my portrait painting class, but what I do get done will only make me better. Plus on Monday I’m going go try going to live model portrait drawing sessions I heard about. My class will be Monday nights so I don’t know if I’ll go to both at the same time because it will be beneficial to warm up and be focusing, but I don’t want to spread myself too thin and have it effect my painting.
I’ve got pretty much all I want to do accomplished for the day, so I’m about to kick back and relax. I might play some Star Dew Valley later. It’s just a relaxing world to pass some time in and if we have energy tonight, my wife and I are going over to a guy’s house to watch an old zombie movie. I’ve met him once before and he seems pretty chill like we’d get along. We just haven’t been able to spend time together, but now it’s time to take a nap with the pup. He’s already fallen asleep on me.
The best part about me is I am not you
I try to stay humble because there’s no room for growth when you think things are as good as they can get, but I watched Good Will Hunting again recently and there’s a part when Matt Damon’s character says to Ben Affleck’s that he wants to be doing the same thing in 20 years. Ben says if he’s still here in 20 years, he’s going to beat Matt. The reason being that they’re surrounded by guys who wish they could be in Matt’s position, to throw it away is an insult to them. I should acknowledge and be grateful for everything I have. I wasn’t given opportunities that aren’t available to other people. My dad was a truck driver for over 30 years, I dropped out of school at 17 to join the Army. Joining the military is available to nearly every American, especially the infantry that has the lowest requirements. I did my work and made smart decisions. I had a plan for what I wanted my life to look like and made that happen. In my eyes the only problem with that plan was I accomplished my dreams before I turned 30. I still have a lot of life to live, so I decided to set more goals.
I compare myself to titans of humanity and that makes me think I’m worse than I am. I’m not as good of a thinker as Nietzsche. I don’t have a body like Arnold. I can’t paint like Sargent. These people reached peaks of what is possible for a human and I will continue to compare myself to them so that I never stop improving. When I compare myself to the average person, I’m insulting them to say we’re equal. I’m not equal to the average person. I’m good looking and smart. I work hard and commit to long term goals.
Yesterday I was sitting in my outdoor greenhouse, in the middle of winter at a warm 80 degrees, enjoying a cigar while listening to Bach. The act of having a cigar suggests your life is so stable that you can walk away for a bit to enjoy yourself and things will be fine. I was thinking if I had a magical power to create my life exactly as I wanted it, I couldn’t think of anything I don’t already have. I enjoy every minute I get to spend with my amazing wife, she’s even taking me to dinner and the symphony tonight. I’ve never met a more loving or well behaved dog then my own. I left the back gate open recently and he got out, before I knew he was gone he was scratching on the front door to be let back in. My mother in law joked that I bought a truck to transport mulch and she’s not wrong. I had the urge to do some gardening and could buy a new car without it effecting my finances. My days are spent exactly how I want to, chasing my dreams without having to take orders from any boss. I’m going to keep saying I’m not good enough so I can be better, but boi am I happy to be me.
20 lbs of lobster meat can fill a 13 gallon trashcan
Someone once asked me something like what was my favorite cereal and I told them I like blue foods. Blue lobsters look really cool, though I don’t think the pigment changes the taste. They might even taste worse than a normal lobster for reason only the lobster psychologist can tell us. I do enjoy the taste of lobster, I had it a couple weeks ago to celebrate how successful my wife is at her job. Whenever I treat lobster as a luxury food I think about at one point in history a law had to be made that prisons in new england weren’t allowed to feed their prisoners lobster more than three times a week. Can you imagine the poor souls being locked up, having to eat lobster everyday. I suppose we don’t know the condition of the meal. Maybe they were just throwing a live lobster inside a cell and whoever survives in the new prisoner. Goes to show even something like our taste buds end up being culturally connected. Lobsters are the cockroaches of the ocean, so they say at least. Not sure what they mean exactly because I’ve see CRs before and there’s not a lot of meat on them. Though I’ve never tried them before. This next bit might be a little hard to read. Imagine coming and see a big pot simmering, “what’s for dinner honey?” Oh, I’m boiling us some CRs. Maybe if they came in a range of colors, people would enjoy them as pets. A joke I’m sure I’ll make in the future when I see a blue lobster is to ask, “Do you think it tastes blueberry or raspberry?” Then there’s always the big debate of does cotton candy taste blue or pink. Maybe it’s the cotton is blue and the candy is pink.
There has probably never been a human as brilliant as I
I’m writing this with music in my ears, so I thought my train of thought might be a bit sporadic. I then realized, that’s every time I write. The music is Bach’s mass in B minor. It’s honestly wild that this sort of stuff exists and that it’s no longer the height of culture. I had this idea that instead of watching YouTube videos, sometimes I should just write, that’s what would make me a good writer and more of a philosopher. Well maybe I’ll give it a try, but it’s energy and that was what I wanted to talk about. I’m tired. I hate that I’m tired, but there’s also nothing I can do about it now that I am tired. It means I need to rest, but if I want to be less tired in the future I have to willfully go running back to work as soon as I can. I already did my drawing today, so that’s good. I also wanted to talk about this idea that seems to be referred to as post-modernists. I’m imagining modern refers to the age of science and post-modernists would refer to life that has been transformed by its luxuries. We’re obviously living in a land of milk and honey, well at least if you’re in America, but I think every country in the world has a higher quality of life than it did 50 years ago.
There’s also this tendency to only think in extremes these days, of course I’m a product of this, I just take everything to its extremes. That ends up turning myself into a mirror that I point at society. I think people need to move away from any debate where only two views are offered as possible solutions. Someone might use as an argument against me, that there are still people suffering in the world, so things aren’t better. Maybe people don’t have water in Flint, MI still, but you’re crazy if you think Americans aren’t practically on life support with the number of machines they rely on compared to 50 years ago.
Lifestyles are more comfortable than they were in the past, but that doesn’t mean life is better. The idea is sold as progress means improvement and I’m not saying life isn’t better, I’m saying the ideas are not related. There’s an argument to be made that the machines create a disconnect between individuals and our sense of community is weaker, that a quality of life is better judged by an individual’s community. We’re sold the idea that things keep improving though, that’s the collective narrative and my connection to my definition of post-modernists is things keep getting better because of science. Science will not save our souls, people feel this, so they know there’s a lie in what they’re being sold. Some people will go on accepting the life is good script, they will probably live good enough lives with little meaning. I would relate that life to what Nietzsche called moral cowardice. What I think happens to a lot of people and what leads to the shaky times it feels like we’re living in are is they stop buying the script and when they look around they see things aren’t always good. They turn on their parents then, whether literal or generational, because they feel lied to. It’s similar to a child being told Santa doesn’t exist. No one wanted to tell the child when they were too young because childhood should be enjoyed, but we don’t need lies to enjoy our lives. Humans are incredibly resilient and can handle hardship. What people struggle with is when they find out the entire community has been lying to them, possibly laughing behind their back. It sends my post-modernist into a frenzy that wants to destroy everything, where if we played the kid Bach as a baby, they would have already known.
Chris' Morning Pages 