Deferred Motives

The primary intention for starting this blog is to have a showcase for my artwork.  At the moment, I don't really have anything new to add, as it's been a while since I've had time available to do any work.  But I have some older stuff that, while interesting, doesn't really reflect the direction I've been looking towards currently.  Anyway, in an attempt to keep things interesting instead of just openly bitching about things, I've decided to post some of this older work - most of which is sourced from digital photos or "appropriated" from elsewhere and manipulated with some generic free art programs that I don't even have anymore.

Enjoy.

Imprisoned Thoughts

This is just some boring squares, but I like the color palette.  I'm not sure what was used to create it, or what inspired it.  I like art, but I'm no scholar.  I just find the highbrow explanations of what inspired a particular work, or the hidden meaning the artist buried within their work to be just a little pretentious and tedious.

Tree

Not 100% certain that this was distorted from a photo I had taken, but I feel 99% confident that it was, because I think it was one of my mother's plants.  Again, this is nothing more than an attempt by myself to make something I liked.  It had no real meaning.  I still kind of like it.

Cascade

Really wish I had more information on these.  All I know is that from late 2005 through somewhere in 2008 I had spent a lot of time creating these images on my computer with nothing more than my desire to create them.  I have no real training using any kind of photo manipulation programs, and am a total amateur when it comes to anything done on a computer.  What this had been or how I made it, again I don't recall, because I didn't know what I was doing, and if I had to recreate it I wouldn't be able to if my life depended on it.

But that's enough for now, because I'm bored with this.  I'll probably end posting several more images from my limited body of work before I have anything new to showcase.

Selling Out To The Lowest Common Denominator

"An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence."

Mick Jones of the Clash had an interesting view on selling out.

The Clash sells out

A band like the Clash is an infrequent occurence - rapidly transcending their peers to become a global phenomenon, all while doing exactly what they wanted to do, and all in under a decade before they packed it in.

And while I'm certain that compromises were made on their end, most of us nobodies seem to spend our entire lives compromising ourselves just to make ends meet.  Every day I get up at 4 A.M. to start getting ready for work, I know that the next twelve hours of my life will be spent doing things I don't want to do, but have to, just in order to be able to have a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food in the kitchen.  Twelve hours, you say?  Yes.  Twelve hours.  Because all told, prepping for work and driving to and from plus the eight hours (with a half hour for lunch), I arrive back home at 4 P.M., and that is twelve hours where I am unable to really do anything I want.  Sure, there are moments of down time where I might be able to make a phone call or whatever, but largely, twelve hours a day, five days a week will inevitably be solicited for the meager compensation that is my paycheck.  And that's just my current job.  Let's not talk about the two times I was in Iraq as a civilian contractor, and the actual work schedule was a full twelve hour day for seven days a week - no time off except for vacation.

Do others have it worse?  Do others devote more time, work harder, never see their families?  Yeah.

Should I shut about it?  No.

People who just lay back and accept the inevitability of their circumstances deeply disturb me.  I mean, with that kind of mentality, why bother living?  Your life is wasted if you're resigned to relegate to being a prostitute of capitalism.  There has to be a better way, and I am determined to find it.

I have nothing against work.  If money did not exist, if we could choose to do whatever we wished with our lives, I would still be working in some capacity.  The difference is that I would be doing something I enjoy.  I remember a time when there was a fair balance between my job and my life, but sadly this is no longer so.  What happened?  What was the catalyst that made such a drastic change in my life?  I can't say.  But most people I talk to about these things feel the same way - that time is speeding up, and that life is slipping away with less chances to do the things they'd like to do while the amount of things they have to do seem to be increasing.

But I trudge on, trying to do the things I'd like to in the bits of time I have available to do them.  At some point I'd like to be able to do some sort of freelance work that could ultimately afford me to quit my day job and focus 100% on those things I enjoy doing, while making a living at it at the same time.  Yeah, me and everyone else.  But if I don't keep trying to improve my situation, then I have no right be dissatisified with the life I'm living.

Then I have these ideas that don't interest me, but might seem to be more appealing to a wider audience.  And I think, "Well, what if I just create some crap that I know I'll hate but might be a stepping stone towards settling into a position where I'll be financially secure enough to do what I want?"  Thoughts of selling out.  Which, I'll admit, if I had something that absolute then that's what I'd be working on right now instead of complaining online.  (Admittedly, this blog right here is the first time I've ever created any real presence for myself online.  I'm a bit of a luddite in that aspect.)  But in real life, even if you can create a viable, finished product, you still need a way to get it out there, and in that aspect, you need to have some sort network or interpersonal skills, which I am not in possession of.  But I suppose that I'll attempt to jump that hurdle once I arrive at it.

For the time being, however, I'm left wondering how one balances life with work, or optimizes their free time in order to be the most productive.

"Career opportunity, the one that never knocks."

The Complete History Of My Plans To Run Away

"Newness Is No Virtue."

From an early age I'd always had a strong interest in books.  As I developed into a young teen, I was drawn heavily into Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and H.P. Lovecraft's body of work.  Lovecraft was harder to get into; I struggled with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward on several occasions before finally making my way through to the end.  After this, I quickly sought out all of his other short stories and remain a huge fan - not just of the eldritch terrors Lovecraft wrote of, but also of the verbose literary style that saturated the tales that were barely "good enough" to be published in the sci-fi and horror pulp magazines of the day.  Both Tolkien and Lovecraft created worlds that, while incredibly intricate and fraught with otherworldly perils, seemed immensely less complicated and mind-numbingly inane as this unfortunate time period in which I've been forced to dwell.
     Maybe it's a "grass is greener" mentality, but the present is hardly an exciting time to live in.  In fact, the older I become I grow less concerned with anything happening currently in the world.  This leaves the future and the past as points of interest for myself while I struggle to cope with being stranded in this, the shittiest of all eras in human history.  Part of the issue I have with the modern world is the complete and total lack of any sort of freedom we have.  We are oppressed by our consumerist glut for shiny new things.  We are divided by our feelings of superiority against those who possess differing opinions on any subject, be it religious, political, sexuality, racial, nationality, etc.  We are worn down by a world filled with the distractions of instant gratification.
     Suffice it to say that I hold very few tethers to any of the several billions of fellow humans that I walk among.  I just find most people too uninteresting to try, if that makes any sense.  Our predisposition for pretentiousness is something that I've worked hard at breaking free from.  No matter who you, there is always an alteration in your personality that takes place when you begin to interact with another person, and while others might not notice or even admit to it, this has always been something glaringly obvious to myself.  The company I am sharing has always been an altering factor towards the reactions and rejoinders that my internal processes select, whereas an alternative response would have been chosen for someone else.  It seems insincere to me, but it is something akin to a natural instinctive reaction to being subserviently approved of.  And by fighting this urge, I feel I make others uncomfortable.  Conversation does not come easy to me as it is.  Writing is a far more eloquent form of communication, and I try my hardest to make logical sense while having something genuinely interesting to say.  But my own personal criticisms have held me back from ever doing anything in a more creative capacity that might have commercial appeal to any sort of audience.
     That's partly one reason for starting this blog.  It's my first, and I'm hoping that putting my thoughts and ideas out there will convince me that getting it out is more important than getting it right.  In the future I hope to have some bodies of work that I can use as a portfolio towards getting some more interesting and artistic work, and maybe one day I'll be fortunate enough to remove myself from the rat race that keeps me from having the time to be truly creative.
     I apologize for the randomness of my thoughts, but little else.

 

"I was so surprised to find that after all it doesn't hurt to be alone"