Where you been Ole Girl?…

On Becoming…

Funny you should ask, I’ve been rolling through theory for ten weeks. I am evolving, twisting turning. Shedding old skins that no longer fit my season. Its weird, to say the least…but we like weird. And the further I crawl in evolution research – the more I begin to see that we are all a little weird in our own right {not just the “us-es” that live in me, all those “you-s” too}. And that’s not even opening the can of “species” in which one is indeed many different things. Most recently, I’ve considered transcending dualism…you know, asking “What is next?” Are we really two? Or a form of one with multiple expressive components. A large, flexing plurality micro-sectioned into millions of individuals. Creepy, I know<>. If there were a choice, to be be all body or all mind, which one would you select? Here, I see the need for unification. What would be the point if action held no meaning, or if thought could not experience? The two go hand in hand. We must have both.

Anyway… The rest of my Grad School update – I’ve constructed a reviewable rough draft! The original, rougher-rough draft, is a sprawling beast. However, when I began the cuts I could not bring myself to really “throw the draft out.” I saved it, and – as recommended by my peer – will possibly look into book form once my degree is attained. Really, this is a bonus – now there will be a paper and a book possibility for the future. That is not to say that I am not nervous as all get out that the paper will bomb from the heavy cuts. O Fortune! smile upon this wayward researcher. Motivation is for the degree, but also… I’ve grown to love my topic, and I see much truth in the words – I hope that publication is possible because I want others to read my discoveries. I think it will help with real-deal life. I know that the research and writing helped me with my daily issues. This thesis led me out of the valley of despair. I want to lead others out, that valley is not good for the genes – much pickling and souring goes on there.

What else…?

My music journalism internship was officially complete 27 May 2016. A hectic day – my SweetJane graduated High School and James Bobin’s Alice Through the Looking Glass released. Exhaustion seized me, and I went to sleep around ten p.m. What a day!

I use the term “officially” because I still have one music assignment waiting to complete. An amazing interview with Bev Zizzy will be published 17 June 2016 – in conjunction with her new album release. I say “amazing” because I am the one that interviewed her – she is hands down the most interesting woman I have met in my physical life.

Followers of this blog will note that I am not a “believer,” but I am a “seeker.” Unfortunately, my MO in the past has been “seeking” to shatter “belief” with “truth.” Ultimately, a lesson I learned nearly a decade ago resurfaces:  truth is subjective. I know this, yet seemed trapped in that terrible Pursuit of Truth. I broke free, and switched it up for the Pursuit of Optimism – but positive living is dependent on will power and forcing the good. Needless to say, it takes work and effort.

I went through a stage where I thought “signs” were pointless, or rather, imaginary. A trick of the mind, leading to delusion. Now, after the internship, after speaking with living, breathing artists…

After the strange Tibetian Monk approached me in New Orleans with a message… After I randomly met the YouTube TruthTalker I once followed online and danced with him in the street… After I philosophized with a new friend of Middle-Eastern culture… After much contemplation of “the egg”… After Bev Zizzy released “Stay Soft”…  I am not certain.

Embedding issues :-< apologies… Watch for the interview on 17 June 2016. MTF

“Stay Soft” by Bev Zizzy. Click HERE for preview and purchase on iTunes.

I am curious again, maybe not fully “curiouser” yet, but I see my own purpling underway. I’ve come to the point where I am seeing more and more signs, but I am trying to ignore them. Trying to cling to science, reason, and the physical world. One thing – I am reminded that I am an Artist. Whether I am a “good” one or not is to be determined, but I am one. Not a musician or songwriter, not a painter or sculptor…but an Artist all the same. I am an Artist because I look at reality and see more than other people do. Sometimes, I see more absence where there should be presence, but that is still more than meets the eye. Mundane life is not enough, there is more if we make there be more – juice it up like a turkey.

I am an Artist, and life can get thick.

My canvas is the mind, my brush dripping in consciousness. I wrap words and break down complex situations. We Artists see the beauty most vivid, and we relate that to others. We Artists see the horror in thirty-three tints of terrible, and we relate that to others. We see

the “good” and the “bad.” We share awareness for altruistic encouragement. Artists revive other Artists, reminding them of the meaning hidden behind it all.  Artists bravely look in reality’s face and demand more. Recognizing this makes me monitor what I share, say and side with – I am an Artist, and others will follow. Careful then, as to where we lead them.

Artists are a light, guiding species through evolution… We may not know the answers, but we are brave enough to explore possibility. #RageOn fellow Artists. There is much to be revealed.

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Dionysian Origins

, I have not found a specific term to label Nietzsche’s alternative considerations, but he advised individuals to create themselves by experiencing pain and pleasure, allowing room for one’s own selfish concerns, and acknowledging progress to belong to evil intentions. Or, rather, asked for a redefinition/understanding of the terms “good and evil.” I think Nietzsche wants us to be honest and ask ourselves, “What do I think I want? Let us see…I’ll have to try each flavor, as I cannot rely on a universal demand to tell me I prefer lemon. I think I like chocolate better.” Here, duty would demand that lemon was the flavor and sucking a lemon tart was the moral thing to do. “Evil” urged that another flavor would not be as tart. Experience showed chocolate as personal preference. Evil encouraged change. {Imagine room full of stiff philosophers sucking on lemons, and Nietzsche stretched out with a box of Godiva. lol<>}.

Nietzsche saw the qualities of good and evil as motivating forces for humankind to determine their own path. However, the ability to improve fell on the side of evil and not good; Nietzsche said, “The strongest and most evil spirits have so far done the most to advance humanity… they forced men to pit opinion against opinion, ideal model against ideal model” (4). Real change were implemented by men of evil intent – the people who were not satisfied with current rule and used force to upend reality – while the men of good intent were attempting to keep life nice and easy. Nietzsche saw anything “new” as linked to evil because it disordered the previous good. Nietzsche said, “All refined servility clings to the categorical imperative and is the mortal enemy of those who want to deprive duty of its unconditional character…” (5). He saw duty as created obligation used as means to ensure that the average human fed the artificial system of society. He advised humanity to give up their moral high-horses and to recognize their own selfishness; Nietzsche said, “For it is selfish to consider one’s own judgement [sic] a universal law, and this selfishness is blind, petty, and simple because it shows that you haven’t yet discovered yourself or created for yourself an ideal of your very own…” (335). Selfishness is not all bad, as we have seen in previous texts this session. What matters is what one does with their selfish considerations.

The message I receive from Nietzsche is that we are all master’s of our own universes and not limited to strict morality as society understood it – individually, people are able to create themselves, and they do not need society to tell them how to do it. Dionysian pessimism was predicted for the future, in the hands of anarchists – those seized with romantic pessimism that extended their torture on the lot of humanity; Nietzsche said:

 

The desire for destruction, for change and for becoming can be the expression of an overflowing energy pregnant with the future (my term for this is, as is known, ‘Dionysian’); but it can also be the hatred of the ill-constituted, deprived, and underprivileged one who destroys and must destroy because what exists, indeed all existence, all being, outrages and provokes him (370).

 

Is this ‘Dionysian’ his term to replace morality? The becoming process was a path for unique and incomparable individuals who wanted to create their own laws as well as themselves, he said: “Sitting in moral judgement [sic] should offend our taste” (Nietzsche 335). Life was a process that required physicists to create reality.

 

Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Ed. Bernard Williams. Trans.

Josefine Nauckhoff and Adrian del Caro. Cambridge, United

Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Thank you for the picture:  http://content2.beyondretro.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/THE_DIONYSIAN_STILL_21.jpg