"Art is the lie that tells the truth"

Now. Here we are. Stuff I made, on display. Me, on display. Feeling a little queasy. I don't claim to be an artist. (I can't sort out that word.) I like cutting and pasting. That's it. The movement of scissors mesmerizes me, the smell of glue stick is delicious to me. It's the only time I have any real authentic zen moments--like your miserable self is out of view for a few refreshing moments, but in a healthy way. Ironically, I mostly make self-portraits. Some say this is narcissistic, I say it's funny and a good way to make a living. And if I don't do it, I get a little itchy. With those few self-conscious qualifiers out of the way, look on. (Click on pictures to make them bigger)




Possible Title: I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto (Alternatively: Screw Kansas, and Oz)





Possible Title: life? Holiday hell? Real life? Holiday hell? Real life? Holiday hell? Real



"People like explanations for art, because art makes them nervous." - Matt Good

Explanation (not that I'm saying it's art, or an explanation for that matter):
I have been thinking about despair. And, actually, despairing. I know I'm on holidays. But, it's only on holidays that I have the time to really do either properly so it's appropriate I think. (Qualification number 2: I am not a philosopher either.)

To help me in thinking about it (to actually despair I need no assistance), I've brought Kierkegaard on board. Specifically, his "A Sickness Unto Death", which is despair. If you haven't read it, I don't know what to say. It's uniquely clarifying and wildly uplifting. Soren is one messy dude. He drags God into everything and has a big wrestling match, like the muddy kind where it's real hard to get a hold on anything, but, you can, through intuition and faith. I love that. (Want to read it now?)

Anyway, back to despair. This may seem a depressing topic, but it is not, any more than bringing light to darkness is depressing. A little agony, a little death, and there is sweet life behind the veil. Trust me. So, I'll tell you why I am on an extended holiday, why I had to give up my job and apt, leave behind my friends and family, and push my husband to do the same. Because I've become too aware of the delusion I was selling myself to escape and so escape isn't forthcoming. It's like smoking a fat joint to no effect and only coughing hard on the smoke. AND still vainly trying to convince yourself that this is exactly what you want. It's hard to respect yourself in this pathetic and desperate state. Heck, it's hard to actually BE yourself in this state. So, I've been ditching on being myself and just opting for lying dead at the bottom of a cavernous, black pit. Emaciated, charred, chained. Insanely lonely. Yet, walking through my life like a smiling skeleton. Feeling like a liar, scared to be found out, ashamed. Yet, still with enough gall in me to fight with Eternity and long to be other than what it made me. Hence, the despair.

What do you have to say, Soren?

"That self which he despairingly wills to be is a self which he is not (for to will to be that self which one truly is, is indeed the opposite of despair); what he really wills is to tear his self away from the Power which constituted it. But notwithstanding all his despair, this he is unable to do, notwithstanding all the efforts of despair, that Power is the stronger, and it compels him to be the self he does not will to be. ...Thus it is that despair, this sickness in the self, is the sickness unto death. The despairing man is mortally ill."

Despite my affliction for the hyperbolic, it'd not be exaggeration to say I've been feeling a little mortally ill. Also as I said I feel a little ill revealing all this to whoever has a few minutes to spare in their busy day, but I press on for one simple reason. You're likely in despair, too.

The common view "assumes that every man must know by himself better than anyone else whether he is in despair or not. So whoever says that he is in despair is regarded as being in despair, but whoever thinks he is not in despair is not so regarded. Consequently despair becomes a rather rare phenomenon, whereas in fact it is quite universal. It is not a rare exception that one is in despair; no, the rare, the very rare exception is that one is not in despair."

Amen, Soren! Who of us can say honestly that we will to be exactly who we were formed to be, not in any small way wish to be something we are not? Certainly not me. But, I've been thinking that I'd like to give it a shot, give despair a little rest. Kierkegaard says that the answer to despair is faith--the most courageous faith, the faith to will to be (and thereby be) your real self--no delusions, no pockets of self-hatred remaining, no escape.

And Thomas Merton tells us that the self is something revealed. Revealed. It's not in you. It's a gift freely given.