Dear reader,
As the eternity of this brutal summer hangs over me I find myself more and more weighed down by the futility of life… the repetition hums as every day repeats in a loop. When I am in survival mode—nothing changes.
A friend wrote to me recently sharing some of the same feelings, why are we alive, why do we make things? If it’s all the same in the end, it doesn’t matter, right? Who’s listening, who’s reading? We’re all just shouting into the void out here, fighting for a blip, a mere glance, in this attention economy. I find comfort in knowing that we have all been asking these questions, for centuries, and will continue to do so…
[You’re asking the wrong questions!] There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity….
…But after this descent into yourself and into your solitude, perhaps you will have to renounce becoming a poet (if, as I have said, one feels one could live without writing, then one shouldn’t write at all). Nevertheless, even then, this self-searching that I as of you will not have been for nothing. Your life will still find its own paths from there, and that they may be good, rich, and wide is what I wish for you, more than I can say.
—Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Whether to keep going or not... I too ask myself this... I think I inherently will always feel the impulse to create, even if it's in sporadic bursts. I think the "career" / trying to force myself to be more than what I am is what brings more stress into my practice--I find comfort in knowing I can always walk away from that and simply upload things online and not tell anyone, or never share anything again haha... because deep down I know and have always had that need to create and I KNOW it has nothing to do with metrics of success... it's about my heart, it's about me and spirit, me and god, me and nature. It's about the uniqueness and beauty of my soul, and your soul, and the communion of trying to excavate and find what is in there, that heart of darkness...
I wouldn't worry so much, because I know you are very much inherently and intuitively an artist, and even if you take a step back you'll always return to it. I think you can give yourself to walk away from all the career stuff and the fluff, just so you know you can step out of that flesh prison, the intellectual prison, the prison of capitalism that muddies up the waters. And if you feel that permission then you'll know, you'll always write as long as you have paper and if you don't you'll be writing in your mind, your life and your actions will be your art, the way you show up in the world will be your art.
—Me, writing to a young poet
There is a beauty in thrashing against that futility again and again, in fighting to live and remain curious and open.
-A
Also, I will be taking part in an improvised performance interpreting graphic scores next week at NMASS festival, Friday at 7pm. I can’t say I’ve ever done anything like it, so it should be interesting.