Writing….

Put a pen or pencil to an empty page and scribble some lines to form a letter. Connect that letter with another letter and form a word. Line up a bunch of words and make a sentence. Collect several sentences with the same thought and form a paragraph. Gather the paragraphs in order and you have written a book.

There seems to be some mystic about authors who write books. Anyone can write a book. We all have something to say and books are a good way to tell others.

Recently I read about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abortion:_An_Historical_Romance_1966

I probably read this in the 70’s like all the other radical writings of the time, but didn’t know about the library.

http://brautiganlibrary.com/index.html

What a great idea, a library reservoir for unpublished books to be available for anyone to read.

I worked at the local public library during college. I was never a good student or an avid reader so the library was just another room I didn’t venture into.

In college I became aware of the behind-the-scenes activity of running this massive storage house for pubic consumption of knowledge. I was working in the middle of the Internet of the time with resources most don’t appreciate.

Here were books written on every subject imaginable purchased by the city to be cataloged for easy access and with only a library card (sorta like a ‘terms and conditions’ agreement to your browser) and you can take a book(s) home and read them at your leisure with a promise to bring them back.

The artificial intelligence at the time was called a librarian. They would guide your request to the proper room for browsing or sending one of the pages to retrieve your reading.

The only request in the library was to be QUIET!

This blog “Just Another Life” is an unpublished book or journal or continuing thought process of one person’s point of view that was started 10 years ago as a challenge and grew from silliness to deep personal reactions to topical thoughts never spoken to another human out loud. There are even pictures.

Instead of printing the pages and binding the pages and trying to find fame and fortune with constant book reviews and signing tours, I posted my thoughts online for anyone to read or comment.

Why?

As I express many times, everyone has something to say. Whether it be combining words or painting on canvas or singing out loud or shuffling around the floor, we all express ourselves. It is our dialog with humanity.

With a click we can now instantly search for any question from DIY techniques with visual variations to how to boil water and even an on line encyclopedia (don’t forget to donate) that is as current as your refresh button can handle.

What do you say?

Why Don’t They Tell Us?

You are creative.

Everyone has the power creative, but many do not understand the magic. They suppress the wonder and rot in routine.

But you have found the gift.

It wasn’t written on the back of your birth certificate or taught in any classroom. It was presented to you and you accepted it. (Alison Leslie Gold)

Even through weak eyes and dirty glasses you view the wonders so many miss. You can’t help it.

As if in some weird psychedelic visual the blades of grass and the shadows and the bird songs that many pass by is your pallet. The colors nature presents that no one can match change before your eyes everyday. How can people not appreciate the sky and clouds but be restrained to the domain of dullness?

How do you explain this wonder to another? A few seem to be in the club with the secret handshake and will freely converse in their interpretations of our combined experiences.

This creativity does have its obligations. This creative stuff needs to be expressed.

The ‘others’ will come admire your presentation and wonder why they cannot do that (of course we all know, they can)

The ability is in all of us, like breathing, but we have to realize the gift and us it.

It is not just painting or sculpture or writing or poetry or dancing or singing or acting or the many common forms declared as ART, but those who created the airplane or the crosswalk or zippers or bubble gum (see how it all comes back around?)

What they didn’t tell you, it doesn’t go away.

You sleep only brings dreams of macaroni and bank robberies and dirty old buildings. The morning brings a new amazing blank screen that will make each day a lasting memory.

How long with this pixie-dust last, is unknown. The grandfather smile before he closed his eyes may have been a sign if anyone noticed. The quilt passed down and added onto through the generations may have a bigger story to tell.

Age is slowing down the body, but not the ability to enjoy the visions and the sounds and the thoughts that flood the mind. When that goes?

Take time to listen to a street musician or a corner shop poet. They are trying to express themselves without the costly promotion and marketing. This creativity is all around and it is free.

This post is coming to an end, but in every corner of the room, the light reflecting off the screen, the tapping of the keys, the imagined dance steps to the music, and I’m lucky enough to participate.

Now that is something to be thankful for.

Sophomore

As an artist, experimentation is key. A painter has many mediums and pallets, a dancer has styles from ballet to free form, a writer has science fiction to historical novels, a musician has classical to rock and roll, a singer has religious choir to solo rap each giving the artist trials of what works best for their techniques and preference.

Once presented to the public (and critics) the artist must decide to continue with that particular style or go in a different direction. If the work is popular it could continue the financial security but stifle the creative urge to explore. Plus the taste of the public is fickle.

An artist, who can make a ‘name’ for themselves through media coverage and promotion, can carry on so that anything done will be considered art due to celebrity. Will the ‘art’ become a corporation stifling creativity?

Think of the bands that came out with a hit record only to fade away. The record companies want another bestseller and the management wants additional funds for photo sessions, interviews, write-ups, and tour dates to promote the last hit, yet maybe there is domestic tension within the members and the writing fails to succeed in the sophomoric record. Few will get a chance for a third try.

Good luck.

Stage Presences

Persona grata is always a positive and rewarding and sometimes financially beneficial to an artist.

An artist, no matter what category, must sell themselves to an audience to be recognized, thus a stage presence is necessary to not only sell your work but your value.

Some of the earliest painters worked the hierarchy of the nobles for grants to create. Now art and craft fairs dot the landscape offering imagination and artisan with a value to recover cost of materials and time to continue the creative journey.

Have you ever watched a play? A presentation of words and songs and everyone on the stage is moving and making a moment to remember. The same is true with a rock concert or a dance or even an orchestration event.

While an orchestra sits still in there black uniforms, the conductor keeps the audience amused until all can stand to get their applause. A singer on a stool with a guitar must keep the crowd interested before the sound of laugher and bottles clinking drown out the message.

Politicians work-the-room very well. Pointing out people of importance or acknowledging those who are paying attention.

So artist, get off your holier-than-though and welcome people to your art. Learn to interact with the common folk who are just venturing by to see what there is to see. Make a connection and that ‘stage presence’ will turn into dollars filling your wallet.

Break out of your shell and give it a try.

Conform Or Die

  We are born to conform.

  Conformity is the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals that guide their interactions with others. This tendency to conform occurs in small groups and/or society as a whole, and may result from subtle unconscious influences, or direct and overt social pressure. Conformity can occur in the presence of others, or when an individual is alone.

  People often conform from a desire for security within a group; typically a group of a similar age, culture, religion, or educational status. This is often referred to as groupthink: a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values and ethics, which ignores realistic appraisal of other courses of action. Unwillingness to conform carries the risk of social rejection.

  Although peer pressure may manifest negatively, conformity can be regarded as either good or bad. Driving on the correct side of the road could be seen as beneficial conformity. With the right environmental influence, conforming, in early childhood years, allows one to learn and thus, adopt the appropriate behaviors necessary to interact and develop correctly within one’s society. Conformity influences formation and maintenance of social norms, and helps societies function smoothly and predictably via the self-elimination of behaviors seen as contrary to unwritten rules. In this sense it can be perceived as a positive force that prevents acts that are perceptually disruptive or dangerous.

  As conformity is a group phenomenon, factors such as group size, unanimity, cohesion, status, prior commitment and public opinion help determine the level of conformity an individual displays.

  I live in a rather conservative town. I was brought up in the middle-class neighborhood and was taught to follow the rules. My schooling taught me how to be orderly in class, stand to pledge allegiance without taking the oath, pray before eating, stand in line arranged by the alphabet, speak only when spoken to, wear pajamas, wear the same clothing as everyone else, go to church on Sunday and be taught faith and conform. The same lessons my brother learned were passed down to me like cloning education.

  Those who did not follow the pattern were ostracized and called names and disciplined. They became the rebels, the free spirits, the poets and the beatniks who would later be idolized by the conformist as false prophets. Those would not conform were shunned and labeled as misfits.

  The other side of breaking out of the mold is the ‘freedom of thought’. Idealist, creative’s, visionaries and those who think out-of-the-box of conformity enlighten the fringes.

  Was Jesus a conformist? Are his followers? What would we listen to if music were all the same? What about artwork? Every museum would look like every other museum. Every play and television show and dance is the same because someone had not come up with something different. How dull would that be?

  Your green hair will wash out and turn grey but the tattoos will be with your for life. Symbols of non-conformity will come and go, like the fashion of the absurd, but the value of thinking, contemplating, imaging is far beyond daydreams.

  Be an original. Sign your name to it. Be one-of-a-kind and then go back to watching the media wasteland of copy and repeat.

  And listen to your children. They haven’t been taught not to think...yet.

What is your passion?

We all have them. Passion is that something that gives you that emotional ‘rush’. It may not be your job or your family or even your secret lover, but everyone has a passion. That something that takes you to your ‘happy place’.

One of my soapbox issues is to remind people to make time for their passion. The passion might be animals or knitting or baking or tinkering on cars or rooting for some team or playing an instrument or singing in the shower or running.

No matter all the accolades or titles or money or the size of you house or your wallet, it is the passion that fuels your existence.

Some people don’t realize what there passion is until you point out that they enjoy gardening every summer or having cocktail parties or writing letters to friends. If you are a good friend, help fuel the passion of others and it will reward you 100 times.

Some people will have all the excuses. “I don’t have the time for…” or “Maybe someday I’ll….”or “I not sure it is my passion?” Help them along the way.

Have you tried writing? Have you tried painting? Have you thought about taking a dance class? Have you tried…. There are all sorts of hobbies to try and fail at but the effort was made. Stretch your humdrum into more than selfies or listing your grandchildren’s silly antics or what you ate at the restaurant.

If you enjoy singing in the shower, try singing in the church choir or the local community center. If not singing, take up the ukulele or piano or Jew’s harp. You may not play at the Metropolitan Opera but you may make some good times and some new friends.

At the same time, you may have something to say. You want to express yourself or your ideas or thoughts but don’t know how. You might read a children’s book to put your grand daughter to sleep and think, “I could do better than this”.

Hand or an antique typewriter or a word processor can do writing. There are books and websites and editorial software to assist. It may turn into a Blog or a family Christmas card or a best selling book, but it is your passion.

I personally have too many passions. I also have the time to bath myself in any of them at any given time. Come join me.