Notes to Self

Run on.

Then it's not a need to be seen, if I have found a love that already accomplishes that desire in the private, quiet afternoons with her. So, there must be another compulsion driving it all, like the desire to shout upon entering a cave. The echo really isn't begged to return so much as it is created with a leap of momentary commitment, one tiny compelling force that leaves the mouth and grows to the size of its container. An "I must", with no more thought than that. It is a kind of commitment, and commitment is a kind of worship, even if only for the duration of the act of creation.

"How long does my essay need to be?" and the teacher always suggested, "it needs to be as long as it takes to write it." Art demands such a walk, patient, but not an inherently long and grueling one.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend about painting and how every piece I've worked on has come to a halt the second I start to suggest what needs to remain "pure" within the work. I tend to do this in order for it to look "good" rather than what I wish to express. It is the removal of the artist's seat and the acceptance of an audience chair that creates this gridlock. The destination arrives when it wants to arrive, not when I apply a lens that isn't my own in hopes the piece connects with someone else.

Worship requires presence, and presence asks for a form of privacy within the mind, a commonly crowded space. It's why art is so parallel to meditation. It’s why meditation shouldn’t be driven by an immediate goal much more than the act of doing it regularly and getting better at it.