A part of me felt afraid that if the world was wrong and sure of it that it could be bad news for the future. I’ve been reflecting on that idea a bit, and I have to believe that the future is either more resilient than that, or it isn’t, and there’s nothing to be done. Either way, it makes no sense to take up brainspace thinking about it. It is what it is.
The concept of the occult is there in the name: it’s things that are hidden. We don’t hide much of anything anymore, which is where our feelings of being lost come from. You’ll feel empty if you put everything on the outside. Similarly, I’m not sure how much I want to communicate with regards to the interior. There’s still plenty to comment on aesthetically, new ideas coming down the pipeline, new ways of being. You can talk about making a garden or a book that you’ve read. Everything else is inert, dead to me. Why would you want to enter into that arena? Seems fake.
Everyone is lured by the prospect of turning themselves into a doll that can be passed around and admired. The tricky part is that you have no control over that doll once it starts changing hands and infecting minds.
I’ve been considering what’s going on inside of me more intensely, and I’ve been looking at a lot of art. Back on May 18th, according to my phone, I saved some photos from an artist named Kazu Saito. The name wouldn’t stick with me, and I found myself scrolling back through my Twitter likes, trying to find out who painted this picture. Turns out it was on Pinterest. Why didn’t the name stay? This painting affected me more than anything I’ve seen in a long time. It brings to mind the mornings after a night out, coming down from a buzz and feeling sad while the rest of the world wakes up. There is a deeply spiritual emotion that comes from the drunk walk home: you see everything continuing on, and it reminds you of your death.
I couldn’t remember the name of the artist because the painting is so good, to me, that it can’t have authorship anymore. It is a piece that transcends the person who made it, and maybe my brain doesn’t want there to be a name to it, the same way I would feel a deep unease at the concept of someone authoring my memories.
This is what I’m looking for in a world of constant authorship, exteriority. Something so aesthetically affecting that it erases the human. I don’t think I will look into biography much anymore. I get it.
As I write this, it’s 5:30am, and the world is beginning to look a little like this painting. What with the rains we’ve had. I’m going to feel this feeling for awhile and work on returning to the occult, in a pair of gym shorts and a hoodie, drinking from a warm gallon of spring water.
Broken River Blog 