The Artist

From Todaycollegetour

Let me see if I can get my thoughts straight out loud on this one, Man. As I’ve thought about what gets me stuck. The reasons why I am ineffectual. The thing that has me stuck between wanting to do things and not being able to get off my ass and do them. What I’ve been thinking about, it’s pretty weird actually. I’m not even sure it makes sense. Basically, I have come to see myself as an artist. Actually it’s weirder than that. I’ve come to see all people as artists. And “life” is your piece of art – your portfolio. Every one is an artist, you know? Each person is an artist of his own life. His life’s work is his body of art. Yeah, that’s what I mean, his life’s work is his body of art. Could be ugly, could be pretty. Could be crude, violent, painful, colorful, boring, short. Or, ya know, it could be all flowers and rainbows - like a girlfriend I had once – I mean no matter what happened to that girl, it was always flowers, smiles and pastel colors - rainbows coming out of her ass. (Smiles) But anyway, what happens to so many people, I think – well what’s happened to my parents and friends anyway, and what I really fear could happen to me, is that we all, or most of us at least, most of us have this intense capacity to love, ya know. Like it is really a gift. A gift ya know in the same way that a musician can feel life through his guitar, and a painter finds his art through his brush, or an athlete or actor in performance or competition. Well for most of us, and even for the real artists, we can feel love so deeply that its natural that our art, begins being expressed through a love affair – Through being in love and being more alive than in any other time. So that’s the first outlet for art for most of us – and maybe the only one for a lot of us - loving and being in love. And then, after years maybe, like any artist would, you go through a different cycle and, and, things change. And somewhere along the line, the love turns to something else, something less artful – for whatever reason. But I think the problem is – the one I am worried about anyway, I guess, is that “I” forgot, and that I will forget again, that loving is my gift, my art form, because, ya know, the world gets in my way and makes me forget. All the daily bullshit that creeps in - that I allow to creep in because I am not resolved enough in what I believe about life. So all the bullshit dulls me down, so I get distracted and I forget who I am and what I am. And without even noticing it, I fall into a rut and I wonder why I am in a rut and its always because I forgot.  But, then just as fast sometimes, sometimes even faster than the forgetting, I'll see beauty in someone or soemthing and I remember again, all of a sudden, just like that, in an instant, I know it again: I am an artist.