This is a bit from mail to Ben:
What I need, more than anything else, is time. I need time to rest and think and get over things. I need to clear my head so I can get back to meaningful work and have some life.I'm not even seeing a break for that any time soon. I'm on a wheel and I can't get off. I've gotta tell you, I feel pretty close to breaking.
Thanks for the email. Helped.
What I needed wasn't time, but balance. Balancing inspiration and obligation. Long term goals vs short term. Want to vs Have to. Which idea to act on? Which to write? Which might be lost? What's the right choice? So many decisions...so little....wait. maybe this is about time. Work? life? friends? family? play, love or art? The choices, the juggling, the running, the guilt ....the wheel and the tsunami of minutiae--the noise, the noise, the noise
the fear.
all that you love will be swept away
Silly human!
Right. So. Here's something I struggle with as an artist and a human being. I get out of balance and my inner gyroscope starts to wobble. Sometimes the wobble is mild, sometimes it can knock me right out of orbit.
All that said,
added 11/11
{I'm thinking that if this is an issue for me, it very likely is for lots of other people too, including you. I'm thinking we can try a group collaboration of a sort and explore this struggle (we can better define it together on the forums)
I'm hoping you might want to take a closer look with me. You can use any medium you choose in any creative discipline.
The only thing I ask is that you don't participate without fully exploring the subject. The most important ingredient in this soup is the human element.
Ravyn tells me we can make a place on the forums to post work and comments.
Now, here's my question to you for the moment: what will we call this place?
g'night
15 comments:
the fulcrum
Equilibrium.
Rubius spat out what I was going to holler. Or what is the opposite of a snowball? That.
The Cusp.
Computer weirdness abounds today. I'm sorry if this is a duplicate comment. I've been trying to use my Livejournal log in and it's not working, so this is Ulffriend.
My suggestion is The Nexus
The Point
as in:
Get to...
What's...
That's...
and a whole bunch of other relevant phrases
DavidK
I like all these. I'm always saying 'the truth is in the middle. Sometimes, when my 'thinking face' begs questions I respond 'I'm digging for the creamy center.' I visualize a piece of candy, cut away to reveal the cherry or other hidden nugget inside. The core. The seed. The center. It sounds like we're in accord. I've gotta say---"The opposite of a snowball" appeals to me as a title.
well. of course it does. A snowball rolls, gets bigger, the center gets buried ever deeper.
We're going for the opposite. Untangling, unraveling.
The anti-snowball.
What would work with the other forum titles?
Possibly we should pick a working title and do this project, then re-evaluate when we're done.
Does this mean you're in?
I'm not quite sure what I'm in for... but I'm thinking that's a good thing.
so I'm in.
the opposite of a snowball... the creamy center... the melt?
for some reason the work 'keystone' wants to come out too.
sometimes titles have to come to you at the end of a story.
i also like the word "crucible"
Two thoughts occur to me
"The Bell Lab" - instead of "The Bell Jar", based on the conversation we had about "Spencer's Brain" Instead of experiencing life through a Bell Jar, the Bell Lab would be how we figure out how to break through. And it's a play on old massive corporate structures as well as the inversion of a short hand symbol for depression and anxiety, which appeals to the symbolic subversive in me.
The other one is "Mortar and Pestle" wherein things are crushed and broken down to reveal their essences so that they can later be combined into things that heal, harm, nourish or flavor.
The second one is sort of inspired by the "Spare Parts" forum title - I think in my head I see tiny gears and herbs and poppets and fears being crushed together with many different hands doing the work to make something true.
Of course on a lighter note there's also
Conjunction Junction
: )
"and", "but" and "or" will get you pretty far . . . . .
Also not sure of exactly what you're proposing, but it sounds intriguing.
Did you know that a poppet is also a type of valve?
Found that a while ago accidentally - here's a Wiki on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppet_valve
'Poppet Valve' or 'Valve' might be a good name. Plus it's one of the those words that immediately sounds like not-a-word once you've said it once or twice...
DavidK
This does sound intriguing and I'm going to have to give this some real thought to see what I can or cannot do about joining in fully.
I know that I tend to be wildly out of balance a lot. There are many areas of life that I would like to see growth and improvement in but what I feel like is that I am constantly in this cycle where one or two things are of major importance while the rest of my life is ignored. Then, for no apparent reason and often without conscious thought those things disappear from my radar and other things take their place.
This doesn't happen in any kind of rapid-cycling, mental health sort of way. It has always, as far as I can remember, been the way that I unconsciously approach life. And while I enjoy the heck out of my life I am often reminded by circumstances or loved ones that either this area or that area is being woefully neglected and those moments of clarity tend to make me panic and wonder if I have any control over my life at all.
It is an interesting, and very personal, subject and I appreciate you opening the door for this discussion.
everyone: thanks for the input!
Ravyn created the forum for us, with the working title...well, you'll see.
I've opened the discussion. Looking forward to seeing what we come up with. For now, we need to decide whether to wait and put everything up at once, or just start posting our creations as we do them.
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