I realized about half-way through writing this that I was struggling to make sense and couldn’t figure a way to make it so that it fell into place for the reader.
It dawned on me then that the problem that
existed is because I feel a need to talk about it. If I eliminated that need then I would have
succeeded in explaining what I’m trying to explain. So, I thought it might be best to throw it
all in the bin and never speak of it again - somehow.
Trying to avoid sounding like I'm a full blown narcissist isnt easy but I need to tell you then that you can look at my artwork and take from it what you want.
I think thats the simplest way to put it.
What I’m talking about must be as simple as the fact that we require context for everything and anything if we want to understand anything at all. I think what I want is to throw the context out the window and with the bathwater and the baby and see what reveals itself.
The rest of it is just me trying to explain this in more detail and hoping that I’ll ramble on long enough for the universe to get bored with me and try to shut me up by providing some kind of miracle.
Let’s see how that goes…
That’s probably where I should leave it, but then it would cut out a whole lot
of fun and exploration and my ego wouldn’t let it lie there anyhow. So, my alternative was to explain that the
following is only relevant to anyone who relies on words, language, and
expression and hopes to gain some kind of relevant insight into how we confine ourselves
to an understanding in order to simply exist with meaning. My aim might not be anything of any importance
and the rest of this is just to appease those who want some kind of explanation
from the artist. My aim might also be to
reach a place where meaning or interpretation of existence makes no logical
sense – but of course I’ll never admit that.
I wonder if one day we all go there and just discover what “IS”.
– or ...perhaps (like
a chemically-induced revelation I once had - in my younger years - peel back a layer of reality for me and I had this thought that has never left me), at the
brink of death (or new life), we are shown the answer to everything (need to link a doodle here) and then there’s some kind of loud zap or bang (along with the giant speech bubble) and you’re gone forever. I often wonder, if that is a common thought?
Right now, I feel that I may be a baby about
to join the adult world where all of what I’m about to say is already known and
has been for a long time. I also feel
that this will always be the case.
…This idea of reading emotion in text is probably just a way
to start the conversation that I want to have with myself, and it highlights
the way that we can interpret things based on our own previous experience. When reading a message sent over an SMS it is
entirely up to me to interpret the tone in the written text (unless guided by
emojis, which also add to the diversity of interpretation). I choose the tone based on what I assume the
texter is trying to say and more than once I’ve got it wrong (when I can recall
an example, I’ll insert it here).
That texting scenario makes it a bit easier for me to describe what I really want
to explore with *my art, and it’s similar in that it’s all about
perception. The difference comes when
you remove the boundaries that require you to keep the focus of comprehension on
the text, and instead broaden the focus (or maybe ‘acceptance’ is a better word)
to absolutely “everything” that your mind can cope with to make a judgement. The important part seems to be the need to
make a judgement. That, I believe is the
reason we rely on context.
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Footnote:
*(if it is mine even – I sometimes reckon I’m just ripping off ideas that I’ve
come across elsewhere but via the convenience of poor memory I have no option
to but to claim credit for this stuff)
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(To take a step backward, I guess now I must explain that when I say “everything” – I know this applies to every other word actually, but keeping to the context here, I’m referring to what I understand that word ‘everything’ to mean and only assume that it means the same for you as it does for me).
So, imagine that there is this box that we identify as “communication”. Inside this box and we are discussing (anything) in the context of “communication” (inside this box) when suddenly everything that you know about “communication”, including the word itself - and the box, just vanishes. What are you left with then? Something like open interpretation or one may even say “freedom” but depending on your interpretation it could be another form of imprisonment.
This reminds me a little that it might be like treading in the realm of conspiracy theory and if you can believe it, also the realm of perception manipulation which is something we have been subjected to by various entities and institutions since forever when consider that everything we are taught by others is always inviting you to have faith in the source or the educator.
At that point, with so-called boundaries removed, it becomes trickier to know where to draw the line in order to be able to “comprehend” and for what purpose, because by our logic and experience (maybe not yours but mine at this point), that is impossible to do unless there is context.
To continue this conversation using any language at all
means that one must apply the rules that we have learned throughout life and
the aim must then be somehow relative to your (or my) existence and that of a common
nature. The only tools you have that you
can use to communicate must share common understanding because another person
is involved and the aim one might have is to verify
the interpretation of the interaction or perception. In this line of thinking, what other reason
might you have to communicate at all? To
this end we can wonder whether my mind has invented other people purely to save
me from existing an eternity alone. Imagine
that. Is it even possible to imagine? (I think I picked up some similar ideas about
this from the movie series “guardians of the galaxy”).
So for possibly the 50th re-interpretation of my own understanding of such things, it appears that human logic creates a kind-of faraday cage for human perception itself, and I can only guess that it might serve to prevent the ability to see ALL that IS.
Please don’t ask me what “ALL” means as we just cannot have that conversation if you are a figment of my reality induced by me and my mind’s eye. Jim Carey comes to mind here, and so many other things that I’ve heard in relation to attaining enlightenment and elevating your “self” from the common plane of existence, merge at this point but simultaneously this is like the Ouroboros eating itself perpetually and leading to no form of usefulness unless you make a point to intervene.
That is the crux of the matter perhaps and the line that determines whether to pursue thought through the imagined boundless plane of existence where you cannot ever use words or meaning as language. It is maybe pure experience and I’m being forced to use words to define something that has never been defined (except possibly in the mind of someone who never saw the need to tell anyone else about it) **. When applying the reasoning that you want to apply. It even becomes impossible to have a discussion but if you want to describe it to someone else then words will ultimately fail and I feel that it will come down to faith, or something like that will be required if you want to ever assimilate with what we have termed “reality”.
Footnote**
This makes me think of the notion of humility.
What purpose does it serve and if you consider that thought and
enlightenment have no boundaries then you may think humility is self-creating because
it exists only if we accept that there is no real definition of anything and
then we are forced to accept that, and humility bestows itself onto you. Then again, it’s just a word and in the
context of what my art is about – if I succeeded in my endeavour to know “everything”,
the idea of humility might not even exist.
In a different way I also have another lesson in humility. I’ll try telling this story elsewhere and
link it here. (Leonard Coen and my
friend who discovered humility)
Art vs Science comes to mind at this point, and that’s almost
like the same conundrum as the chicken or the egg when trying to determine what
is real. The best way to go may be to
just shut up and experience as much as I can and make my journey the source of all
worth and comprehension.
Ultimately, it’s what I believe most people do anyhow but I can’t help but try
and wedge something like a new idea between one we generally accept as real and
the idea itself that there might be another reality – the point of which could
just be to see what happens.
Humility (recognising it is a word that carries a long history of meaning),
does provide a stepping stone to this wedge I have in my hand ready to insert –
just not sure where it goes though. This
metaphoric wedge spawned of humility wants me to say that you can never be
right about anything and simultaneously that you are always right about
everything. I don’t want to debate it because
it seems futile to do so for the purpose I have, but I suppose I want others to
acknowledge that it exists – this idea that we can never know the unknowable
but maybe there’s a chance that we can anyhow?
Maybe I’m just metaphorically knocking on a door and hoping that someone
lives there so I’m not alone.
...Seems
this idea just adds to the distance already created by human
behaviour and interaction in separating the "reality" of
understanding what's real, or "real", from what may be merely
a perception of an experience, and nothing more than our own
interpretation based on emotion, past experience and education (basically
whatever you can think of can be your justification or reasoning since our
entire understanding of anything is a culmination of all of our personal
experience. It could always be said that
“that is all it is”. If the pursuit is
to find another way to see, or another plane/dimension of existence that might be
meaningful then, once we have reached a different understanding of what “reality”
is you can guess it will always be possible to ask whether that is the most
objective position you can hold, and the answer will always be “No” unless you have
somehow reached the position of what we perceive GOD to be (this again opens another
can of worms and exploring GOD or the idea of Alien might also fall into what I’ve
already mentioned throughout this explanation).
This leaves something like a gap in the perception VS reality equation (is there an equation? What else can I call it?). It's probably not a gap but most likely more just a lack of information or something I haven't considered but I'm hopeful that someone else will have the answer.
For now I find this Gap invalidates anything I do to gain the ability to fully capture and understand anything at all and this "understanding" can only be real on a personal level and confined within a box-reality we have created for ourselves.
If you are only understanding a fragment of anything (not talking about me but in your own life and experience) then are you understanding anything at all... If you dont have all of the information then how can you claim that you understand?
Where do the lines of "anything" get drawn and who draws them, if not yourself, and so then, what percentage of your perception is verifiable if everyone suffers from the same perception variables? Seems that we have no choice but to draw lines to end speculation purely to be able to function within the world we have created for ourselves. I can’t help but to want to explore whether this is something that can be seen objectively - all the while realizing its impossibility.
Seems like even trying to explain it in text (possibly in any form at all) is
pointless.
Assuming that our perception of reality allows us to understand anything at all, when advanced technology comes into it (like internet and even just the use of language), it's like widening the gap in an ongoing carnival of communication. I don't suppose it matters to any great length that we get it right, but I think it's important to remind myself that the world is not quite what it seems ...ever!
Some people are so clever at performing like they 'belong' but really, we all do belong - and I suppose simultaneously, we all don't belong; anywhere, any time and any place.
I'm thinking it's time to let it go or this may start making sense which then requires investigation to see just how much of it makes sense and what are we really assuming that we understand - so I'll just continue to make art about this kind of stuff and let someone else figure out what and if any benefits exist.
"I think; therefore, I am" is a quote that never leaves me but then, maybe I just don't really get what he meant by that.
I didn't promise to make sense right?
It sort of does make sense to me until I try to explain it and then it all falls in on itself because part of the whole problem is that I need to use concepts and context to make it coherent to any degree but I guess the point is to get you here and then to drop you off in the wilderness and hope that you get us both back to some kind of new beginning.
The why, what, where, when and just fill in the gaps