Smart art: in America, the land of anti-intellectualism, it's perhaps inevitable that our art should devolve into a screech against the national celebration of the dumb.

I write like Charles Dickens

according to this site, which analyzed this:


God, is there nothing better to do than writhe? Or is this the only conceivable task, fit for a man who prefers a seat to a hug? Who of us can honestly say what it means to writhe, anyway? The word itself sounds too painful for familiarity to honestly reach out and coax the small formation of letters into unraveling. But if it is at all esoteric, I know the meaning. I know it well. And I have an unwarranted wisdom as the result of this understanding. Its awfully strange how much we learn against our will. And even stranger how much people change over the course of teaching us what we wished we never knew. Fine fine fine, it's all strange or pointless or refusing to contain itself, much like the word writhe has done throughout my lifetime.

Sometimes he spoke out loud, but it was not satisfying; it seemed rather to hold back the natural development of the ideas. They flowed out through his mouth, and he was never sure whether they had been resolved in the right words.

I don't read or enjoy art, I consume it. I absorb film after film after album after book after poem. I've learned so much from far more than intellectual conversation, perhaps that is an indication of how much I've had. I've considered the lives of everyone, from singer to actor to writer. I'm not gloating, but something about this feels abstract. To listen to Modest Mouse songs and feel like I've become more aware of what life is just as I do when listening to Bob Dylan. And then watching The Dark Knight and taking inspiration from dialogue (Bruce Wayne asks Alfred what he should do as people are dying, Alfred replies, "Endure") and also becoming hopeless about the state of the world when listening to Gareth Liddiard sing "You sure ain't mine now" because the woman in the song isn't merely a migrant or vagabond, she's someone searching for some truth in a world that has very little reality worth embracing. God, this just doesn't feel normal or healthy. Just how long can one sustain this kind of endless contemplation of everything?

THe main thing is to shun lies, all forms of lies, lies to yourself in particular. Keep a watch on your lies and study them every hour, every minute. Also shun disdain, both for others and for yourself; that which appears to you foul within yourself is cleansed by the very fact of your having noticed it in you. Also shun fear, although fear is only the consequence of any kind of lying. Never be daunted by your own lack of courage in the attainment of love, nor be over-daunted even by your bad actions in this regard. I regret I can say nothing more cheerful to you, for in comparison to fanciful love, active love is a cruel and frightening thing. Fanciful love thirsts for a quick deed, swiftly accomplished, and that everyone should gaze upon it. In such cases the point really is reached where people are even willing to give their lives just as long as the whole thing does not last an eternity but is swiftly achieved, as on the stage, and as long as everyone is watching and praising. Active love, on the other hand, involves work and self-mastery.

"Been in love as many times as I've been alive in years." - Slug

My recipe for peace as told by a pair of quotes from Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky

"You must be realistic, madame. If you stray outside that, you do harm to everyone."

"One always ends by getting use to anything."

Hate women? On the contrary – and I can’t see that my lyrics are in any way sexist – many of them are very deep love songs to women. “6 inch gold blade” was written, as it were, under the bedsprings of my unfaithful lover – whose head I can recall wanting to cleave apart with a large knife at the time – not that I’m the jealous type! But it doesn’t say I want to stick a 6” blade in the head of all women. A great many of my songs are about relationships that I’ve had, they’re very symbolic, very real. “Junkyard” is a love song, not in the Capital Radio sense but nevertheless it’s very real to me.
Nick Cave

IN terms of my generation,

We're living out our futures. Loneliness has became so certain, so overwhelmingly infallible and apart of life that we have convinced ourselves its a necessity of life. Now, in keeping with human beings trying to adapt to changing conditions, we are adapting to this new viewpoint. Getting comfortable with being alone.

heaven knows I'm divisible now

skin painted on
by a tyrant
and the heart of
a weeping willow
weren't we all meant to be
born by another set of strangers?

my own father's hands
rusty and scarce of
a woman's.
a working man's blues
handed to a son growing too soon
weren't we all meant to be
born by another set of strangers?

oh the concision of
a backwards step
how awful it is to watch
how unaware the walker is
weren't we all meant to be
born by another set of strangers?

of it I'm sure
i have no allure
not character
not a kind voice

still we are more than
just characters
singing along in a given voice

still we are further from reaping
the benefits
than we are from paralysis

Apart

of a dying breed of individuals ashamed and afraid of being lonely. Too many introverts these days, we're starting to believe there's nothing wrong because there's so many of us.

To expand on the last post: People only chase dreams, no one is pursuing me.

So then

This is what it feels like to be no one's ideal. TO be perfect to, more or less for, no one at all. To be good, but not good enough. Awful. I'd hoped I'd feel otherwise, or have felt more, by now.

The worst part about romance is that so much of it is conditioned. The statute of instincts and human intelligence naturally give way to more than enough reasons to love someone and enjoy a lifetime with them without all the fuckery that is bought and displayed whimsically in the name of love.

At one point someone from the audience yelled out jokingly, "Play something happy!" to which Nick glibly responded, "I don't do happy songs. I do angry and I do sad. That's what I do."

What to do, what to do

Hope for us.

you
there
standing around like
the figment of
some preteen's too-intensely
idealized
imagination.
Let it go,
let it all go.
THe only remains of it
exist between
the same ears
that recorded her every word.
Let it go.
The beating beasts beneath
our chests are an endangered
species.
So let it go.
We are all alike but we are not
the same.
A cesspool of excuses
is what we dig our bitter little hands
into for relief,
though nothing of aid can be said
when you prefer a grave to a hospital bed.
So let it go.
Because a bruise is no less a shield than a scab is.
Once injured you're not more likely to be
had
than those who inexperience
has given naivety.
So let it go.
Let it go.
It ends on its own, but only
if you believe it should.
Emotions have the lung capacity
of spaceships.
I know.
But let it go.
Its worth letting go.
They, he, she, everyone who has
Stolen pieces of the lifetime you belong in
is worth letting go of.
So let it go.
Affection is our only remaining importance in this
configured torture.
So give it to someone who needs it.
And let it go.
You are their holocausts,
their hollow causes,
their extremities of perseverance,
and their mistakes.
You are like them,
you are similar to all who have suffered,
but you are not them.
So let it go.
Who wonders for any other reason than
to wander from the present?
We all do.
So let it go.
Wander only from that which has left you.
Bind not to what will not even
look you in the eye to say thank you
or fuck you.
Let it go.
Give in to the notion
of a continuation,
undetermined, but inevitable,
if you
let it go.

Shit just got real fucking sexist in here

Women will never understand men. And men will never be able to draw the self-portrait women keep tucked away beneath their dreamy hope. I mostly blame the latter on the former. A man's bound to be honest because it is a man's world if for no other reason than because men are so prone to contributing damage to the world to preserve their own comfort, security, and pleasure. The most bitter of women understand this, and have probably felt it ruin a part of them. The most foolish of women are to blame for all the personality types of femininity; optimistic women and pessimistic women are all variants of the ideal happy woman. The majority of men just want something beautiful to look at that won't leave, and who better to stick around than a trophy wife who doesn't believe in widespread misery?

Who is more prone to leave than a woman who feels there's always something better where she isn't and running from what is will turn her 'what if's' into 'what perfectly is'?

Sexism has its roots buried within us and it will take decades and generations of unadulterated honesty to bring not only an end to sexism, but a beginning to peace. I don't think people in love with an appreciative and reciprocating opposite start wars or give up on all that is living.

I think sexism sheds an at times unbearable light on why we are entirely to blame for the pain we each feel.

This all of course predicates that love truly is the only counterproductive force capable of fighting our progression towards a misanthropic world of isolation and misery. It is also preceded by the assumption that love is valuable or is at least part of our purpose in remaining alive. For the disbelievers of this supposition, I ask what is empty about love? Is the very fact that we are fragile enough to deconstruct bones and tissue just by time's continuity not reason enough to hold on to someone and seek only to make their life fulfilling and enjoyable? Exactly what are we if alone? Isolation and loneliness can really suck the joy out of life and though it is preferable, by me even, to heartbreak or any other type of disappointment, it should not appear beguiling enough to treat people like shit. Especially people who have committed no harm to you.

I extrapolate from that to then present our truth: we are bound for pain, but we must soften each blow with love. Both women and men must be honest as shit. ANd we mustn't allow our mortality, and all the impossibly avoided aesthetic deterioration, mislead our efforts made towards happiness. The relationship of man to women, I believe, is one of the most prevalent determinants of what the future will hold.

Disappointment is something very peculiar to me. I've never been unsure about being disappointed. I've felt confused about being happy, depressed, and content, but never disappointed. I've always been certain that I've been let down and that it has felt like something tied an anchor to my mind.

What I find unique about it is that just prior to being disappointed, I may have the capacity to imagine what is about to happen, and some times I may be more sure of it than others. But once it occurs, I'm suddenly changed in a way. And then I feel like shit or whatever.

But the same change is achievable by doing more than you believe you can do. By disregarding your own limitations. Once you do so, you have grown exponentially in just a few moments or for however long it takes to overcome a fear of yours.

I'd like to think this gives me and anyone reading more hope than anything else. Hope itself is only validated once we have achieved something anyway.

Ken Mode - Likeliness is against you

Completely devoid of colour, she peers down upon us. Winds rise and fall; with human voices as leaves….chattering and falling, piling like corpses. Searching for answers to questions you can't even define. Observation proves to be both a gift and a curse. Filled with a sense of confusion, an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach. This void has no satisfaction, and it reminds me of this fact every night. They make me sick. And the pain of it refuses to cease. Nothing is ever done. Picking life apart before it can be lived. Each situation dissected and dismissed. Left cold and redundant, trapped within this self-propelled cycle; motivated by fear. And likeliness is against you.

Self expression is the new entertainment. - Arianna Huffington

Pride and cowardice versus humility and courage. A wounded helper or a wounded hurter. - Cornel West