I have been quiet, even silent, on this page for a while. There have been reasons, and they are almost all social. First it was an old love interest who scorned my thoughts that discouraged me from writing. I wished to hide my words. Then it was an ex-girlfriend stalking my blog, trying to redeem a feeling of dominance and success well after the love failed and I wanted nothing to do with her. I thought of changing my blog title so as to ultimately hide my soul from the perceived, intuited, and imagined influences such people had on me, I thought of never writing again, I thought of waiting until I had so much confidence that I could overcome any fear. These yielded to the convulsions of performance-based fear. I writhed about in a stammering confusion, for the sanctitude in my mind to return. I don’t have some resolute epiphany to save the day. I do have some complaints.

It seems that for the young writer, the aspiring artist, etc., there are so many expectations swirling around performance that are simultaneously deleterious and motivating. There are expectations for good form in art fields. There is a feeling, a process of improvement, of honing, of refining that can split into a controlling taskmaster or function as an organic developer. It is unfortunate that controlling souls and gentle souls can both produce great art. The excellencies we desire are not wrong, but the method to attain them is fraught with risk for the soul.

For instance, you could imagine periods and phases of artistic development, from within an individual life all the way up to human history at large. One phase might be a period of formalism, a highly crafted, polished, ornate yet elegant style, memorable, universal, knowledgeable of myth and tradition, well-organized. Then along comes a bombastic procession of romanticism, impressionism, abstractionism, surrealism, irrationalism—all an individualism poised against the pedantries of the formalist period. Yet this liberal phase of anti-formalism brings with it its own expectations. Yes, the stale social critiques of the past are upended. But they are replaced with a dogmatism of the subconscious over reason. Whereas the earlier period of formalism propounded reason supervening over the body to achieve grandeur, the new phase popularizes, even expects an antagonism to reason except as a subject to the body. Postmodernism thus hides its dogmatism by asking its fans to deny their own dogmatism. It is the ghost of formalism reborn. The paradigm of form has not been transcended. When form still takes center stage, even as an object of antithesis, it doesn’t matter how much poetic leaping takes place, form is still in charge over the body. The dualism has not been transcended in anti-dualism. Anti-dualism is stuck in duality.

The expectations of having a marvelous, individualistic realization of artistic catharsis is a serious hindrance. The quality of good writing, of good reading is indeed desirable. But there is a parasite lurking in our midst. It wants us to focus on the paradigm of individual vs collective, high vs low quality, concept vs feeling, etc. instead of the thing in front of us. It is a satan, an accuser, a deceiver. These paradigms are not evil, but they are not the core thing. When we give our attention to the game of such paradigms, we get deluded. The pressure is not all in our heads. We need neither abandon or accept the pressure.

The heights of excellence are not putting pressure on us. Image-focused, security-oriented, death-denying, weakness-hating, complexity-crushing, concept-killing attitudes are doing that. The heights, the glories keep calling us. The stars are already within our desires.


February 11, 2023
Gorda, California