The Explanation:
First off, know that my mind cycles through ideas and concepts like a drunk man in the park insisting his bike is right around the next tree… Or is it the next one? I think I’ll stop and take a piss in the fountain.
Almost two years ago, I said one of the simplest, truest things in a time of self evaluation. I’m pealing off the layers of who I’m not. I began to understand who I was and quit mascaraing as who I wasn’t. It was liberating. Today I am met with the same challenge of as is the nature of life, this time is harder than ever before. In the last year I have learned more about myself than I thought I could in a lifetime and I have a responsibility to be true to these things. I can no longer say I’m just pissing around because I’m confused and don’t know who I am or who I want to be. At this point in my life, both of these items are very clear and I must handle this information correctly.
So what the fuck am I talking about? I’m talking about people, basic recreational activities, and human interaction all in comparison to my art and my career. I have completely engulfed myself in my process of becoming a professional photographer and producer. I have a new internship I’ve been at for a few months now and my portfolio is finally starting to mimic the images in my mind. All the mental and monetary preparation I have already put in is showing its benefits and that encouragement is propelling my to tackle the mountain of work that still needs to happen. I have been focused, disciplined, and worked harder than I ever have in my life. Everything I talked about the beginning of January that I wanted to accomplish this year I have done and more.
There lies the good. Here lies the bad and the potential for sacrifice. The further I go down this road of mental discipline and citizenship in the world of art and business, the less I understand humans. I’ve always known that I was a little different than people but was able to ignore the differences in order to maintain normal relationships. The more I have come to understand myself however, the more I see I will never be like the people that are in my life. Human character is directly build from what individuals see as valuable. This scale determines what hurts them, what makes them happy, why they do what they do. Many people don’t even know their own value scales, only the outcomes they can see from their actions. Sometimes I think I understand other people’s values more than they do.
The things I value confuse most people and the things other people value confuse me. Like I said, I have been able to maintain an appearance of similar values so as to maintain human relationships, but now I question the necessity of this. How weak am I that I must form a presentation of myself that my fellow mortals can relate to? To step away from that presentation however is suicide to a normal way of life. But continued involvement in a world of relational complications is suicide to any higher level of art I hope to be capable of.
Every step I take toward a world of perfection is a step away from an overwhelmingly imperfect world. I have resolved to do this for the betterment of myself, my art, and my own standards. Every day I create more and more separation between me and a world I have been absent from so long that I have erased its details from my mind. The separation is intentional. I cannot be involved with the meaningless things in life and expect to be seen as anything different in my field. There is a comfort in the world I have walked away from though, and I miss it greatly. The ignorant and misguided people are many and there is a power in their numbers. And I am risking everything because I believe to the core of who I am there is a different kind of power, a better power, in my isolation and separation from the world.
I will look back on this time, on the decision I will have made here, and see it as a foundational reason as to why I became what I will become. This is one of those moments that changes a person.
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