Sometimes I start to write an entry and I just can't.
Maybe I will know my topic and find it too challenging to get into it, or maybe I will not know exactly what I am intending to say and things will not gel.
Sometimes I even begin an entry and then stop halfway, either due to lack of direction, lack of conviction or lack of motivation.
These things do not happen often. But they happen.
As one who questions things, I have to ask myself, 'why am I writing this?' And, if the answer is not satisfactory, I will cease. I don't like wasting time. Not mine, nor yours.
And when I say yours, when I refer to you, I, of course, do not even know who you are. I will know some of my readers personally, for sure, but others not. I also do not know who reads any given essay, even amongst those who I know sometimes pop in for a gander.
But it doesn't matter. Because I am actually, really, talking to myself. I am talking to an element of myself that wants to understand how I think, how my mind works, how I put the world together, take it apart.
I am curious about every element of existence. Strike that. I am curious about the things that I am curious about. There is plenty of stuff that doesn't interest me.
I have strived for more than forty years to gather as much information and life experience as I can, at every opportunity, through interacting with people of all sorts, through travel, through absorbing books and music and art and films. I dive in deep when I am into things.
In the late seventies and early eighties, movies were my passion. I made an effort to see as many as possible. I would go to revival theatres and watch double bills - movies like Performance, El Topo, Dog Day Afternoon, Midnight Cowboy.... Films by European masters like Truffaut, Bergman, Fellini... Japanese greats; Kurosawa, Ozu, Imamura... plus Kubrick, Altman, Lindsay Anderson...etc, etc - I just wanted to soak it all up.
I was studying. I also did the same with books. Less the classics - more the contemporaries. And music - I recorded onto cassette thousands and thousands of hours of stuff. Art, too, of course; I could not get enough.
And my point? I realised today that I have been loading up big time for a long time. I have been a perpetual student of the arts for decades and decades. It's all self study, a vary loosely structure curriculum. ie. find what ignites my interest and get right into it. Go deeper and deeper. When it gets boring - move onto the next thing.
So what is to become of all this knowledge? Am I full yet?
No, of course not. I continue to stock up. But, what is becoming apparent now is a growing urge, need, to use what I have learnt to make some good things, some lasting things, some inspirational things. Stuff that will fire up the young meez of the future.
Naturally, as well as absorbing over all this time, I have been consistent with my output as well. But I believe I am yet to really reach my pinnacle. I am yet to bring it all together into something wonderful. But now, the time has come. I am getting nearer and nearer. I can feel it. My output - of paintings, of comics, of ideas and of writing has increased considerably. Things are taking form more easily. Purpose is becoming more apparent.
Cause, seriously, let's face it - at 54 - I can't wait around too much longer. I've got to go for it. And I think I am ready. I am ready.
I cannot say yet, right here, exactly what form it will take - because I am not precisely sure - but I do know the roads are converging. I am tuning in more accurately. I have created - through data input over my creative lifespan to date - a massive repository of all kinds of artistic and expressive notions and techniques and sensibilities. I have stockpiled, in fact. The warehouse is full. The factory is oiled and ready. Production has begun. Even I know not what will appear out the other end - but I do know something - it's going to be absolutely wonderful.
Maybe I will know my topic and find it too challenging to get into it, or maybe I will not know exactly what I am intending to say and things will not gel.
Sometimes I even begin an entry and then stop halfway, either due to lack of direction, lack of conviction or lack of motivation.
These things do not happen often. But they happen.
As one who questions things, I have to ask myself, 'why am I writing this?' And, if the answer is not satisfactory, I will cease. I don't like wasting time. Not mine, nor yours.
And when I say yours, when I refer to you, I, of course, do not even know who you are. I will know some of my readers personally, for sure, but others not. I also do not know who reads any given essay, even amongst those who I know sometimes pop in for a gander.
But it doesn't matter. Because I am actually, really, talking to myself. I am talking to an element of myself that wants to understand how I think, how my mind works, how I put the world together, take it apart.
I am curious about every element of existence. Strike that. I am curious about the things that I am curious about. There is plenty of stuff that doesn't interest me.
I have strived for more than forty years to gather as much information and life experience as I can, at every opportunity, through interacting with people of all sorts, through travel, through absorbing books and music and art and films. I dive in deep when I am into things.
In the late seventies and early eighties, movies were my passion. I made an effort to see as many as possible. I would go to revival theatres and watch double bills - movies like Performance, El Topo, Dog Day Afternoon, Midnight Cowboy.... Films by European masters like Truffaut, Bergman, Fellini... Japanese greats; Kurosawa, Ozu, Imamura... plus Kubrick, Altman, Lindsay Anderson...etc, etc - I just wanted to soak it all up.
I was studying. I also did the same with books. Less the classics - more the contemporaries. And music - I recorded onto cassette thousands and thousands of hours of stuff. Art, too, of course; I could not get enough.
And my point? I realised today that I have been loading up big time for a long time. I have been a perpetual student of the arts for decades and decades. It's all self study, a vary loosely structure curriculum. ie. find what ignites my interest and get right into it. Go deeper and deeper. When it gets boring - move onto the next thing.
So what is to become of all this knowledge? Am I full yet?
No, of course not. I continue to stock up. But, what is becoming apparent now is a growing urge, need, to use what I have learnt to make some good things, some lasting things, some inspirational things. Stuff that will fire up the young meez of the future.
Naturally, as well as absorbing over all this time, I have been consistent with my output as well. But I believe I am yet to really reach my pinnacle. I am yet to bring it all together into something wonderful. But now, the time has come. I am getting nearer and nearer. I can feel it. My output - of paintings, of comics, of ideas and of writing has increased considerably. Things are taking form more easily. Purpose is becoming more apparent.
Cause, seriously, let's face it - at 54 - I can't wait around too much longer. I've got to go for it. And I think I am ready. I am ready.
I cannot say yet, right here, exactly what form it will take - because I am not precisely sure - but I do know the roads are converging. I am tuning in more accurately. I have created - through data input over my creative lifespan to date - a massive repository of all kinds of artistic and expressive notions and techniques and sensibilities. I have stockpiled, in fact. The warehouse is full. The factory is oiled and ready. Production has begun. Even I know not what will appear out the other end - but I do know something - it's going to be absolutely wonderful.
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