Ive been called many things over the course of my lifetime , some of them hurt more than others .... The worst is when it's a silent accusation , or an air of gossip based on misunderstanding ...especially if that then proves to be detrimental to a relationship either romantic or professional ....
I don't mind admitting that I've been beyond rattled of late ... More so than usual ...I know right !
Nervous breakdowns are a common hazard in this line of work - a little burnout through stress or heartbreak seems to be just part and parcel of it ... So it's important to know that ....
one , it's generally relatively short lived ...although compounded PTSD can be a real issue ( but again all the more reason to know your limits and who you are even when teetering on the extremities of those limits ) .the old saying that all things are temporary is definitely true - including your temperaments and states of mind .
And , two , you know how to sure up a little when things get weird ....
An experienced artist like an experienced psychonaught know how to traverse such tricky and weird waters ...." Aw yeah , realities bending a bit here ...better accommodate for it "
And things are often weird when you look at stuff with a broad perspective the kind of broad perspective that only a true understanding of the terrain can encapsulate ....
So during my most recent existential crisis , a remarkable combination of heartbreak , stress of an impending exhibition and a high court legal battle ... I have had to take a few weeks just to ' sure up ' so to speak ...
No mean feat in this gaslit nation - second guess yourself at every turn .
Shoukd I vote for labour or Tory ?
Leave or remain ?
Buy a house or emigrate ?
Take the vaccine or abstain ?
....am I an international artisan or a mad shut in ? ( This one is definitely dependent on time of year )
There is of course a historic and cultural prevalence to the nature of gossip and story telling , at what point it becomes frivolous storytelling or malicious hearsay is difficult to know ...
So when you think about it , kids really display the tribal basics of the societal dynamic in Thier play and social structures ...even kids at a very young age demonstrate an ability to form packs with evident hierarchy - there are leaders and followers there are independent kids , needy kids .... Kids that want to be in charge , kids that want to join in and kids that want to do Thier own thing ....
Now I've been thinking recently about , well, about many things .... The bain of spending so much time wandering around on your own or spending extended periods isolated and painting .
One of them is just my little reflections on the word gaslighting -
So when we are in school , it's very common to find social bonds and shifts occuring - young siblings are terrible for it ...before they ascribe the sensation of guilt to it , but it's more fluid in the school play ground without that emotional ' family ' binding structure .
Kids fall in and out of favour with each other for tons of reasons - where they live , what car their parents drive , what trainers are cool , what video game consol is designed the greatest of all time for that particular Christmas , football teams ...even affiliations , think about it , really young boys in groups ostracize the female of the group and vice versa - boys are smelly and dirty - and girls only want to play with girly things - just as a typicality .
And even at this stage - that's gaslighting .
" We arent going to play with you because of your (gender ) " your gender has these undesirable characteristics .
If course the ostracized party is devastated , they stand there torn apart by their peers - wondering if maybe they do smell ? - maybe pink is a silly colour ?
It's interesting to watch - of course it happens throughout child and adulthood too ...it's brutal out there - the artificial competition is fierce and observation would show that it's largely self generated, and perpetuates all the way up to fanatical hysteria and mob mentality - burning down the middle east for weapons of mass destruction or burning witches - you've got to nip it in the bud because that stuff , if it gets carried away , that stuff is dangerous on a historical level ....
I've been having a lot of musings ( mostly via YouTube videos ) recently , which got a bit much in the end ...
Dating a narcissist - Are you a Narcissist - is your relationship toxic - what to do if you are discarded by a narcissist - going no contact with a narcissist - narcissistic personality disorders - borderline personality disorders - jeezus on and on it goes - so much of it completely contradictory - it's hard to know ....and I have been through this particular subject extensively in the past , when someone with Narcissistic personality disorder and stress induced manic tendency, accuses you yourself if being a narcissist....that can be one real gruelling , soul searching , constantly questioning nightmare ....
Thankfully , I got my fill of all of the you tube video analysis and therapy sessions and trauma recovery - thousands of videos ....some of them are actually quite helpful , but man there's a ton of shit out there too ....
Again , all the more reason to know yourself ...you can sift through and split up the unbridled opinions of embittered individuals and compare it to the actual experienced therapists with extensive experience and respected practices ...working from case loads - not simply statistics !
Upon reflection - I have considered this at length in the past and have given it dutiful contemplation over the past several weeks , I believe that every human being demonstrate both narcissistic and empathic tendencies , I think a well rounded human has too , to which degree each attribute is in terms of percentage ratios is of course different in each person ... But I believe they are always both present ...of course there are extremes and pathological levels of permanence ...
I think they are both , like all of our characteristics , viable to fluctuation too ....according to varying stimuli - I know personally I can demonstrate narcissistic tendency if I'm feeling competitive or defensive for a mate ... If I am doing a public appearance I definitely prefer to feel that I look presentable and don't stink , it's part of a common courtesy as much as a desire to project an image - but image is important , especially a professional image ....or so we are told ( again I'm probably too much of an open book for my own good , but I find there are less things to worry about when you don't have to think about omissions made or erroneous details so there is definite overlap - but art should come from your life , right ?)
A cacophony of thoughts ....
And it's really un nerving too .... I mean if you are trying not to care about what people think , and you are doing your earnest to pretend that you don't care what they think ...about what you say , or what you paint ....but of course you've got to keep your customer satisfied , right ? But paint and say what you feel and your customer will find you ....well that's a real stress if you need to make rent ! You need to eat ? You want to compete for a girls affections with some salaried insurance salesman ....so do you pander to the crowd , or do you do your own thing ? ....what even is your own thing ?...has anyone done it before ? Do I even know who I am to be able to determine what my own thing might be off the back of that phantom person ?
Again , all the more reason to know thyself ....
If you ask yourself these questions , and the schoolyard mentality out there is asking those questions of you too, while offering opinion as to how they would do it and why you should join their club , clan , commune or cause ...all loaded with societal expectations in its own right, there's a lot to think about !
So how the hell do you know yourself ?
Away from all the noise , all the people and their causes and distractions ....
Breath
Breath
I am ....?
I am .... ?
I am in the woods , near some water , I'm listening to the sound of the big wind meeting the earth through the veil of leaves , branches and brush ....
I hear the birds , I feel the sun , I feel the tickle breeze ...the caress of the big wind !
I stand in a place where footsteps have trodden over milenia , I consider what the landscape looked like for my forbears , i consider their trials , their woes , their destinations ....I compare those to my own !
I wander home with muddy boots and wet socks , I stop a while to talk aloud with the animals if the field , the birds if the hedgerows and trees , I discuss my considerations for my species thoughts about their place in the food chain , I bud them farewell ....I get home with a renewed sense of appreciation for little comforts , for hot water , a hearty meal , a soft bed ..... Sometimes , a warm embrace ....
That's what helps me , inspires me , gives me a reason to work ...to paint ....to care for the purpose of the endeavour , to strive to be better through practice at all that I might undertake
Well , who am I?
Who am I when I'm angry ? Who am I when I'm happy ? Who am I when I am sad ? Who am I when I'm depressed ? Who am I when I'm drunk , or just generally intoxicated ? .. does being hungry make a difference to any of these conditions ? Does being tired make a difference to any of these conditions ?
What triggers these responses, how durable are they ? , and how do I feel about the person I am when I'm in any of those states ? So the I am , the truest " I am " , would be the equilibrium of it, it should be a relatively stable state amid all of these peripheral points , an ideal physical and mental condition within a refined margin ....
Of course , every human has the capacity to exceed even the extremes of these states , catatonic despair , psychopathic rage etc
So if I am to " know thyself " then I must have at least field tested some of these things ...
Ok so if I drink to much alcoholic drinks , I get a hangover , if I drink to many drinks on an empty stomach , I'll have a really bad hangover ....if I then decide , in that dehydrated state to test to physical endurance , I go running or whatever , then I know sure I'll eventually sweat out the alcohol , but I'll feel like shit before I do , and if I don't hydrate sufficiently, I know I'll run the risk of doing myself some physical damage .... these are systemic truths based on observations....
If I see some act of unimaginable cruelty ...I'm likely to succumb to either an empathic sadness or a defensive rage ....something like that ...
But just from experience , I personally know that I can walk around 10 miles on a few bananas , I'm pretty dehydrated and hungry by the time I get to my destination , and woe betide anyone that asks me a ' silly ' question before I've taken in a few calories , they'll get a whipping from my sharp and savage tongue .
I'm hot , I'm sweaty , I'm moody , my ability to concentrate on things other than the pre fixed motive of moving to a destination is inhibited ....
Likewise , I can't do a 3 day sequence in a tour schedule ...it's just too much , it feels like I have voluntarily taken all the fun out of what is effectively a pretty stressful endeavour anyway ...
I get cantankerous ...and begin to begrudge the monotony of my profession ... And I can be downright mean to customers because I'm in such a damn bad mood ! In -excusable ....so I try to make sure I avoid these sorts of inevitabilities....
It's tricky when I write , it's often misconstrued as being written from a default state , but that's seldom the truth , when I write, it's not often because I've sat comfortably and composed my thoughts ...it's because it's midnight and the train was cancelled and it's 3 hours until the next one , or it's four in the morning and I'm awake in the middle of the night and unable to sleep ...and feeling pretty pissed off about it , it's a Gonzo rant , an unedited , non promotional material ....and despite all the spelling errors and problems on structure that come with that I've found it to be a remarkable little diary log , that means I don't take all this pent up hostility out in my friends , my family , my customers ....which trust me , they'll tell you , it isn't always completely effective ....
But I really do take exception when some one says that they have read something I've written and based on their assessment it means that Im a misogynist or an arrogant asshole ...it's like , " hey I wrote that equivalence of a blurb of my day after a ten hour journey and the waitress was unreasonably moody and plus my girlfriend wasn't speaking to me that day " you know , there is a gradation to how things are written as well as how things are then interpreted ....but that old saying , dint judge a book by its cover , or it's blurb in this case ....say " hey I read that thing that you wrote , I thought it was offensive because of ....! Would you mind elaborating ? "
That's much better than " hey I read that thing you wrote and now I think you are stupid and mean "
I mean jeeez , hey man , fuck you too ....
I think I've put this physical and spiritual entity through its trials and tests and despite needing the constant minor tweaks and self reflections that all good maintenance requires .... I can withstand the accusations, the postulations , the gossip and even being gaslit by governments or girlfriends mother's ....
I guess there are hazards with being a bit of a travelling mystery , often the outsider ...the stranger .... again it goes with the territory of the travelling salesman , the roving artisan ....
" It's better to be talked about than not "
It sucks sometimes , it really does ....but someone's got to do it !
And testament would dictate that despite all the opinions all the speculations all the hassles and harrassments
For all of its flaws , for all of its merits , it's potentials and it's short fallings , it's aspirations and its limitations
....I Am x
Definitely a work in progress ... And I couldn't profess to be any less or more, a perfectly flawed human being ....
Just like you x
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