how am i not myself?

This issue of being a balanced person, is it really what I'm telling myself it is or is it actually a ploy I've secretly concocted against myself to destroy myself via gradual suffocation.

"I always put art in front of personal relationships"
-Kevin Barnes

I'm probably going to die chasing this ghost.

---

I figured something out about my relationship with music. It hasn't been until recently that I actually put active thought and effort into what I do with it. I've realized that in the past, more than a technical thing or a creative thing, it was a therapeutic thing. Picking up a guitar is a quick and easy escape into a sea of patchwork sound quilts that seem to do a good job putting back together what the world takes apart.

It is a genuine place to start a relationship with music, I've acknowledged this to myself. But as I become more serious about creating things that other people will actually want to hear, I become more self-critical and aware of personal shortcomings manifesting themselves in what I produce. Lack of focus and discipline, half-assing, getting tired easy, duplicity, self-deceit. I feel these things expressing themselves subtly, staining a sincere thought, and the result is often lukewarm. Even the purest lyrical honesty needs a good sound wave to travel over.

There's a communion, I find, between what I do in terms of creative production and what I do in every other part of life. When I am satisfied with something I've written or put to tape, it trickles out to many other aspects. A whole, satisfied assurance kind of diffuses throughout and I am more driven to push myself and expand my scope when working with music than with anything else really.

That being said, I've been devoting a lot of my energy to a routine ruled by a school I don't really believe in, surrounded by people I feel the most opaque indifference for. But all the question-asking about this choice, I've pushed to the side in the name of finishing what I start, forging personal stability and sucking it up through something I don't enjoy in order to reach something I do. But when it comes down to it, I am putting personal relationships before art, and this is something I struggle with.

The world slowly is becoming less foreign and more digestible and I don't welcome this change. I think I need to recognize that I may have simply outgrown my world. And if the world as it stands to me is not giving me any problems, something needs to change, and inevitably will.

Autumn has basically arrived. The leaves have changed, it's cold. I have to get out of here.

confusion is curiosity's evil twin. and clarity is bliss.

artist vs human

Sitting, waiting, being quiet and listening; but being vigilant, aware and in control. Learning how to articulate. Seizing chances as they come.

Being a good creative individual. Delving into a personal abyss, realizing in different ways how I am everything around me. Tuning myself, understanding as many nonvocal languages as I possibly can. Learning to speak them. Submitting to a flow, being impulsive and sometimes self-destructive. Gambling, taking risks, living on an edge, pushing the limit. Killing today for what tomorrow could be.

Being a good person. Realizing I am what I create and that the relationships I make, keep and suffer to sustain are the most vital, beautiful, satisfying, self-perpetuating creations in relation to me and those in my circle. Family. Absolutely un-glorious with no recognition and the most ambiguous set of rewards. Smiling, struggling, forgiving. Hard Work. Sacrifice. Being strong, being steady.

Life right now is figuring out how to be both, or rather melt the line between the two. But I refuse to believe I have to be a dysfunctional human being in order to tap fully into that Flow.

---

This picture isn't mine but the chair is.

words with strangers

I was riding my bike home from school on Wednesday. Riding up Leesburg Pike, I came to a crosswalk at George Mason Drive where a car had stopped at a yield sign. We made eye contact, I had slowed to make sure she was going to let me go. Assuming we understood each other, I proceeded and found out we in fact did not understand each other when she hit the gas as I was just passing in front of her car. She hit my bike. my body landed against her hood and I rolled off onto the road.

I had just been involved in a car accident two days prior, at the other driver's fault. I hadn't known how to react to the accident; shock overrode any other lingering feelings about the situation.

This time was different. I bypassed shock and moved immediately to frustration brimming anger. Not thinking, I got up from the ground, shoved my bike to the side of the road and slammed the shoulder bag I'd been carrying to the ground. I turned around and looked at the nerdy forty something as she got out of her car:

"What the FUCK, are you SERIOUS?"

"I'm sorry! I thought we made eye contact and that you were going to stop!"

"Yeah, it's a fucking crosswalk and you've got a yield! can't you see?"

"Yeah but I thought you were letting me go!"

Anger was taking over. "It's still a crosswalk and you're supposed to let pedestrians go I can't fucking BELIEVE YOU"

"Now you hold on there, I didn't know what you were doing, goddamnit, and it was not on purpose"

She was plump, wore a lace collared white blouse buttoned up to her neck and a flower print skirt that came nearly to her ankles. She wore glasses and had her hair worn as unstylishly as possible. She spoke very correctly with well-annunciated diction. For some reason, hearing her say 'goddamnit' alerted me to just how upset I was making her. I calmed down.

"Now look, I'm not going to sue you or anything so just calm down. I just got hit two days ago and I just don't get why the fuck it happened again."

"I see, well I understand. I'm sorry this happened"

"Alright well let me get your insurance information" matter of factly.

She left her car slightly veered to the side of the single right-turn lane with just enough space to let cars go by while we exchanged information. Despite their ability to pass, several cars made it a point to honk and fuss about the impediment.

One black-BMW-driving Arabic man in particular:

"Yo, move your car it's in the way"

He began to drive away

A little agitated at his pointless whining, I say, "Yeah, whatever

He stops his car and his gaze meets mine intensely. "What did you say?"

"Dude, just keep going, you're clear to go"

"Her car is in the way, she should move it!"

"Dude, it DOESN'T MATTER just go we'll move it soon, just go away"

He was choking on indignance. I wasn't docile. He was pissed:

"Man, fuck you"

"MAN fuck YOU, i just got HIT by a fucking CAR, keep going it's none of your fucking BUSINESS"

"shut the FUCK UP"

"FUCKING GO"

It was at this clear impasse that he fucking went.

at school, i work
and my work is a school

a little japanese girl plays the piano. she pushes the keys, she pushes her fingers to their limits.
in a mind bending blur of minimal stature meeting young expertise, she is a prodigy.
everyone stops, everyone listens, everyone gawks, everyone claps.
she swaggers from her stance to greet openly an entertained roomful of faces.
she rejoins her clique and is off on her way,
to talk and smile and greet the day.

i stop, i listen, i gawk, i clap.
i pat the little prodigy proudly on the back
she goes on her way, i go on mine
the music has faded from my mind

--

time has passed now, and i'm denying a storm.
i've been sitting in the eye
but i've lost my
bearings and no longer know which way it's going.
i'm soon to be greeted by the hurricane of unknowing.
the hurricane of breath-holding.

and on a walk around a building i know too well
i hear a sound down a hall
that draws me
doesn't awe me

i peer into an empty dance studio. the pianist has heard someone coming and has stopped playing. on the bench is a young korean boy; The Loneliest Boy in school. i realize i haven't seen him for weeks, though i'm here all the time.
i see his struggle, he sees mine.
in the quiet wake of his musical praying
i ask to hear what he was playing
he mentions a piece of sheet music he'd shown me
i remembered it well, so i asked him to play
and in less than no time, there were no words to say
no impression to make
no smile to fake
no changes of seasons to fear
no there and no here
no tiring social test to take
i sit in a chair, put my head in my hands
my eyes are closed so my ears can see
into this moment of lucid scene
of unworldly interaction
and if anything of substance in this building lies
it's in this boy's lonely fingers, i find
making ok his struggle and ok mine
through uncomplicated notes
in common time
a simple piece
anyone could play
what the genius is here, i cannot say
i can only know
and never relay
these notes
don't fade

sturdy

Don't know What:
Who's in the way
There are no new ways
No new things to say

Trade in the pens
For a new set of guns
Pawn the script
For new eyes
Rationalize
Smart guy
Getting high
But
Feet on the ground
Are so much stronger and
Last longer
What you don't need
Gives your thoughts wings
No
Flings
No
Anarchy

Wronger and
Wronger

Put yourself
On that trophy shelf
Gawk at your own
Leaking wealth
Take a deep breath
For a deep breath out
You are what you
Can breathe without

No thoughts, no questions
For just one day
There will be no damage
To your higher brain
If just to keep your body alive
To stay sane and mean and clean your mind
Thinking's thick
But so are the signs
And when the damage is done,
And all's still fine,
Graciously reject
On this holiday
Don't be poet or hero or saint
Or a mockery of the people
Or mimic the quaint
Or tell any more lies,
Inhale any smoke.
Derail. Fail.
But embrace the choke.
Make sense where sense hasn't a home
While climbing the stairs and sleeping alone
In the Eye
Where peasants sleep.
Where mute lepers, deaf shepherds
Earn their keep
And find your feet
On stronger ground
The footprints will
Last longer now

Every face in permanent ink
Will quell the pointless and strengthen the weak
And hold above this serious expression
The oldest, most transcendent of all transgression

with

No agression
No affection
Plant real seeds
Heed real needs
Eliminate worry
Silent, not wordy
Sturdy