Manifesto of The Modern Absurdist

There are ignored senses in the American Culture: a sense of humor and and sense of minimalism. People are conditioned to laugh on cue at sit-coms and punchlines; people maximize all things. The Modern Absurdist is for these ignored senses, to remind the busy world that there there is deep meaning in a simple authentic laugh. These become our memories. This is what the conversation will be over later, expensive, seven-course dinners.

The Modern Absurdist is against stoic, upright conditioned behavior and against the densely populated barrage of identity through things. This person is a mooncalf, refusing to take seriously the acceptable world. Not to rebuke or destroy it, but simply to question whether or not the way things should be is the way things should be.

Observe your day closely, notice every label in your path throughout this day.  Each of these product icons represents either something you bought or are trying to be sold. Consider that just perhaps, in light of the evidence that mega-advertising surrounds us constantly, more than just our name brands and good cars are being sold to us. Consider that, just perhaps, our whole idea of what makes us happy was sold to us by idea men looking to make a profit. That these many labels are thorns in the briar patch, and you have to be Br'er Rabbit to escape unscathed.

Your best memories rarely include any of these labels, these products, you already know this is true.

The Modern Absurdist has an agenda, too. But it's really less of an agenda and more of a prescription for the state of depression and angst present in our society: the medicine for modern apathy is to engage the actual human beings around you. Go out and be an inventor of life again. Remember, like what you did before it all turned into chasing tail and impressing people?

Each of us is rich with imagination, think of your dreams, think of every inside-joke. This is the minimal life, an absence of propaganda and an abundance experiences with people. Be creative with your friends and family, don't be ruled by conversations about labels.

The absurdist's profit is the chance to encounter you. An actual you, with no screens between, no pre-packaged programming. When we meet the secret greeting is a quote from Neruda, "I don't give away thorns, and I don't sell them."

Either that, or "I, too, am a self-abusing wondershow! I see myself in you."

lay my head down

I collect pillowcases. Used pillowcases. I want yours, if you are missing one, I probably stole it. If you gave me one that you had used for many years, I cherish it. Pillowcases are where you tossed and turned, where you dreamt, where you cried and recuperated. They might be the most intimate inanimate object in our lives.

So, I decided to make a pillowcase this week. All silk on one side, laying against it is ephemeral. And then on the other side, well ... me. I didn't think this through, I just well hellbent into headlong so to speak. But about halfway through I realized that this pillowcase is asking someone to sleep with me, and now I don't know if it's more bizarre to keep it or give it away.

anyway, more, less creepy pillowcases to come ...

on unconditional love

What is love?

Of course, there is the arbitrary, age-old question of what kind of love? Let’s skip all that and move onto just one type: unconditional love.

I believe in it, I feel it, I believe there are those out there who feel that way towards me. But why? And how do you get it?

For those I love unconditionally, they earned it in some way. Some way that allows that to not be a condition. But, over time this adoration developed because that person shared their essential nature with me, they took chances, they fucked up, owned up, asked questions I would have never thought to ask myself which in turn exposed truths to me I sometimes didn’t want to know. Their being revealed myself to me, inadvertently.

There are common factors amongst this group of people. They are not family, I met them along the way. I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on them. Mostly I loved them from that first instance, irrationally and completely. They are not my lovers, they can handle me. They are hilarious, they don’t take the world or themselves too seriously, they are philosophers. They are afraid, but not too afraid to go ahead and do it anyway. They are all artists.

I would do anything for them, forgive them any trespass I can imagine them committing. For me to rescind that love, they would literally have do something so out of character that they were no longer themselves. Part of why this epic love came to be is because of the solidarity of their character.

I don’t know if unconditional love is real, I could shoot a thousand holes through my arguments here if I so chose to. But, if I’m to have faith in anything, this is what I choose to have faith in. I believe in these blood brothers and sisters, I give them my soul and my heart. I pledge to them to always have their back, to always love them for themselves. I thank them for my nourishment, and for my sense of what is real and mythical. 100% or nothing at all.

since no one is reading anyways

margaret atwood:

This is a mistake,
these arms and legs
that don't work any more

Now it's broken
and no space for excuses.

The earth doesn't comfort,
it only covers up
if you have the decency to stay quiet

The sun doesn't forgive,
it looks and keeps going.

Night seeps into us
through the accidents we have
inflicted on each other

Next time we commit
love, we ought to
choose in advance what to kill.

intentions, actions and consequences

Scenario: A thing is thought, in your mind, it is good. The thing is done. Then, catastrophically, the thing you thought was good is terrible and you are blindsided and unsure of whether or not you are suddenly in a sit-com. Then the clean-up ensues, apologizing, maybe rebuilding trust. Hopefully the audience will giggle without the laugh light blinking on and off.

Now, you knew your intentions were good. Maybe you were lying to yourself, maybe your honest heart did mean well and you were just being selfish and not thinking about how the other person would feel. Does it really matter? The facts are that when thought became action, the consequences were not good. The facts are that that hurt person will question your intentions and wonder if you are telling the truth about having meant well.

The fact is no one but yourself has access to your intentions.

Just as you have no access to other people's intentions when the scenario is reversed.

Intentions are an ephemeral wish that live only in the mind of the beholder. They are as intensely personal as any thing in our lives, and utterly unknowable outside of total blind trust in another individual, which is the rarest of things. If not a unicorn: imaginary and only told of in storybooks.

Therefore, I claim that intentions do not actually matter. To say "I meant well" is vapid. However, to do well is very important. Actions are facts. Everyone has access to facts, and relationships can be built from them without the perpetual wondering of what was really meant and is that person being honest. Actions are the real vehicle through which trust and love is made.

But more important than actions are consequences.

You intend, you act, but it is the consequences of those actions that inform you of whether or not your actions are in line with your intentions. The consequences reveal yourself to you in a way no hiding from the world ever possibly could.

Therefore, consequences are the most important of all three.

Consumption

paintings from the rabbit hole:

Consumption
acrylic on canvas, 2' x 3' ish

poem:

the words are funny

funny like the smell

of rotten food

or funny

like a good joke told right

right

something inalienable

or correct

or a way to turn

turn

like a stomach sickening

or going from facing me

to walking away

which leaves me stunned

perhaps because

you were stunning

a breath of beauty

once lost and now

I’m shattered

(figuratively, not literally)

you retreat

which is both a giving up

and a sanctuary at last

last like the end

last like never ends