Cataloging the Detritus of my Life
So, at the end of last year I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2011, you can find that list here, or you can just continue reading as I’m going to be self-evaluating how well I’ve done accomplishing the items on the list here.
Here’s the list: Continue reading “2011 Goals: Half-year Review”
My parents came through Fourth of July weekend on the way up to Wyoming for their summer vacation. They brought up with them the last of my belongings that were at my childhood home. It was mostly art supplies. I don’t consider myself that creative and I certainly don’t think I have much talent. But, in my family I was always the creative one, the one with the wild ideas and the ability to convey those ideas through word or image. I took art classes through middle and high school and might have taken a quarter of figure drawing at one point in community college. Since then? I haven’t done any sort of creative work outside of the occasional writing and photography.
Sadly, the one thing that my parents forgot was my old portfolio that has all the work I did in high school/college in it. That is still sitting in a closet somewhere in the desert. At least it isn’t outside where the extreme weathers would surely ruin the paper, chalks, oils, etc…
I don’t why I didn’t pursue art further. I had time in college to take classes. I must have thought that it wasn’t worth the time to practice at something I never considered myself very good at and so couldn’t do anything with later on in life. Yes, I realize how stupid that sounds coming from someone who got their BA in Classical Civilizations. I think another reason might be that I never had any interest in pursuing the craft through digital means… I like getting my hands dirty and feeling the paper beneath my fingers; and my parents didn’t have the money or processing power (this was the mid/late 90s) to get a drawing tablet or the software then in use. So, I sunk my time into other things: poetry and photography. I miss it sometimes. Now that I have all this stuff just sitting around maybe I’ll pick it up again… Who knows?
If you would like to see some of my old creative work and new stuff as well you can check out my other blog: Fictive Funk. I’ll be posting up old sketches all this week and next!
Is what D got me on the fifth anniversary of our first date.
I’ve only cut myself a little using it so far! Besides a few knicks and scratches is worth the money I’m going to be save not having to buy disposable razors all the time.
There is a minimalist living thread on Talking Time that I occasionally read. A poster recently linked to a post on mnmlist which is a blog on minimalism (not the art style but the way of living.) The post asks what you could live without accompanied with a list of examples. After thinking about it some I came to some conclusions, here they are:
I’m sure some people “score” better than I do and some worse. I understand that the author’s point wasn’t to judge or imply that use/possession of items on the list above is wrong or bad, but rather to consciously think about the stuff we buy/have. Some of it though makes little to no sense, “hair” being the best example. I have a hard time seeing how having hair could distract you from the goal of conscious living, even people who take time to do their hair aren’t letting it control their life, if they are “stuff” isn’t the problem they should be focusing on… “Sweets” is another example, what does that mean? Candy bars, sugar, fruit? Why remove those things from your life? They are simple pleasures that can help us escape from a bad day.
I think my real gripe with aspects of minimalism is the focus on necessity. Again, from the mnmlist blog post: “just as [sic recte ask] yourself the questions. Is it really necessary? Can you live without it?” This is not the question we should be asking ourselves! Why? Because it leads down a destructive path. The fact of the matter is that humans can live without everything but water, food, and some form of shelter (and not even that depending on climate.) The human experience is not a race to the bottom. In fact by our very nature we collect and by collecting we can create and through creation humanity has bettered its state over and over again. Do modern people have a problem with consumerism? Yes. Can people become a slave to the things they own? Yes. The answer though is not to throw all that away. The answer is rather to live consciously, be aware of what you have, why you have it, and the costs associated with it. If you do that then you’ll be fine and you won’t have to live like a cave hermit.
And why would you? Those guys smell!