Restructuring

Sunday Morning. I'm waking up. Can't even focus on a coffee cup
Don't even know who's bed I'm in.
Where do I start, where do I begin?

I feel messed up from the crazy chaos I have pushed myself into. Making several life changing decisions in the blink of an eye, decisions that change how time is allocated, decisions that change careers, decisions that change friendships, decisions that change education, all at once, is catastrophic with its consequences. Like the federal reserve ratio, one should change their lives only as a last resort.

I went to Japanese class today. Haven't gone since the Thursday before last. I lost my desire and motivation to go. If I can't go to the 4-day-a-week class because of my new work schedule, then why should I go at all?

But I know better than that. I talked to Richard, and agreed to reacquaint myself with Japanese today.

As I finally dragged myself away from the mindless, entrancing box known as the television (which I hadn't had time to REALLY get to know since last summer), I popped in some sort of Tenchi Muyo! OSV Disc 1 CD into my car CD Player, hoping to maybe catch japanese phrases here and there (as well as memorize the music), and took off down the road for the japanese class.

Eureka was a ghost town today. There were cars on the road, yes, but they were few and far between. I must've had, at most, 2 moving cars visible. The side of the road had very few cars and the fog started to roll in.

I made it to Japanese class a wee bit late. Historically, I've always been late to the class and this particular incident didn't bother the teacher. He had to leave for his son's birthday a little bit early but wanted me to stick around his house to watch old movies.

I wasn't sure whether to or not, since the prospect of playing dungeons and dragons followed by getting in an insanely long run sounded pretty appealing. I agreed to hang around for one movie, though, and then we started class.

We didn't start where we left off; I hadn't even bothered to ingest the new material that I had been given 1.5 weeks ago. Instead, we constructed a list of all the major body parts and pains. Sensei was stunned by his own correct remembrances of various body parts, since he didn't think he knew them that well!

As class wound down, Richard had to leave, but, as stated before, wanted me to stay. I stated that I was hungry and wanted to go somewhere to eat. He left his back door for me to come in to watch the movie when I was done eating.

I looked at a few potential places to eat, but was dismayed to see them all closed. However, as I went down the road, I saw Amiga's Burritos open! Remembering old times of going in there with various friends (and sometimes family) I decided to go visit the place once more, for nostalgia's sake. The fog had really rolled in at that point and that always gets me thinking and reflecting, enjoying the environment.

Up on the walls were pieces of art. I felt like I had to critique all of them since they each had prices posted with them, and I found that each picture had small flaws that, as I thought about more and more, made me feel like the picture had been done completely wrong. Some of them were simple things, such as the color of the background being black rather than blue, or colors used for the focus being too vibrant, while others had very subtle placements that made me not like them.

and, as I began to think more and more about these paintings and how they wouldn't represent myself well enough, I began to wonder: would it be better for me to hang up my own portraits in my house? Surely, the art that I would do would more than likely have everything exactly the way I wanted it. The art would most accurately reflect me. The eyebrow would be at just the right angle, the colors would be the tone that I want, the detail would be perfected...

But that's where the problem comes in. If I don't have good enough precision, if I don't have the right knowledge of color placement, If I don't have the knowledge of how to fill in the correct amount of detail that I want, then I cannot represent myself well enough. I have to use somebody else to represent me. Somebody else who doesn't have quite the same idea as I. Somebody who can never have quite the same idea as I, though he/she can come close.

There are many people out there who buy these paintings for the art. It's nice art, but these people are not representing themselves and their ideas as good as they could. It feels, to me, like they are settling for some sort of second best in trying to express the mood of their house, their thoughts, who they are.

Some people buy the art for the prestige of telling guests, "hey, I bought so and so's picture! I'm cool!" and that's a completely different story. To me, that is accurately reflecting ones' self, since they're not trying to communicate the art to people, but rather what kind of buyer they are. Whole different ball game.

Anyways, back to art.

Am I saying that everyone should create their own pictures, just to represent themselves perfectly? No. That would be impossible to ask for, anyway. I just feel as though it's more accurate to do so if it's possible.

But what would be the use, anyway? Everyone has an interpretation of the same pattern of colors, each one at least slightly different.

The art is there for you to enjoy. It should reflect everything exactly the way you want it to reflect and nothing else.




And so, I'm the one who would highly praise an artist and his/her house for the pieces lined up within, but would not look as highly to the same artists' purchased portraits, hung up by others. The artist's house perfectly reflects the owner, while the purchased portraits somewhat reflect the buyers. (all this, assuming each party, the artist and the buyer, hung up a portrait and said, "That's the picture that I want to be placed RIGHT THERE")

You can tell I don't have very many portraits hung up at my house (really only photography).


But don't forget that I'm a hypocrite (especially because I lack the dexterity to draw, stemming from my use of my left hand as my primary hand when I'm really naturally right handed (but have no right hand practice)). I will probably own a portrait or two, created by someone else, as I get older, and that doesn't bother me.


All this I thought of as I finished my meal at Amiga's and headed outside, to the temporary ghost town of Eureka, to go home... doing neither old movies nor D&D/running.

I'm restructuring my life again. I'm too busy being mindful of my experience with chaos to be playing today.
D.