Koda

To be contemporary, one must mount an opposition to the old-fashioned.
To be old-fashioned, one must mount an opposition to the contemporary.

The joke is that what was once old-fashioned will soon become contemporary again, and the cycle will repeat itself.

To be modern, one must develop an appreciation of both the old-fashioned and the contemporary.

But while contemporaneity is brief and transitory; Modernity however, lasts.

Today I had my first Aikido class for at least 10 months. It was fantastic… just being back in a familiar dojo with my old sensei. Boy, it’s such a wonderful feeling to just be thrown around for a while and rolling - it’s about the closest feeling you can get to flying in my opinion. I was embarrasingly rusty, but after a little while (and some prodding by sensei) it was pretty easy to get flowing again. It’s so great to be back!

It’s also made me very tired, so this will be it for now. Good night!

If I need you to be complete, who am I?
If I don’t, then: who are you?

Dreaming…

… is profound.

Music…

… is inexplicable.

Creativity…

… is unavoidable.

Joy…

… is never unattainable.

Sleep…

… is really really useful.

Wikipedia: Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Part of me can’t help but want to flag it as biased.

Perhaps part of being an artist is getting really really good at something, setting it aside, and trying something completely different. Isn’t it a strange coincidence that, the artists who usually have the most to say, have found the most ways to say it in?

Skill is inevitably attainable. Experience breeds skill. But vision is something we are born with, and spend the rest of our lives trying to find. Vision is message, purpose, and drive. Skills can help bring attention to a vision, but visionless skills talk a lot but say very little.

To me it’s reassuring that we can always find something we’re terrible at the first time around. It’s equally reassuring to think that every time I do, there’s more meaning in there, somewhere behind the terribleness.

I think to be an artist is like being a warrior; part training, and a vastly larger part perspective. Fighting battles is pointless if you lack the perspective to justify why you fight.

Sense a pattern? I do.

(Shamelessly cross-posted from widelysociallyacceptableART)

The more I do, the more I feel I am inconsistent. It’s Not That I Am Not Usually Consistent, but it’s that i feel im inconsistently consistent. It’s a problem, because I’m not sure which is worse, being consistently inconsistent, or Inconsistently Consistent? consistency is arguably not the highest good, after all. but Yet i Think That Since i Give So Much Thought To It, i Should At Least Figure Something Out. I mean, well, what do I mean anyway? I guess what im trying to say is that the more I try to be consistent, the less I end up being. Then there is the issue of whether or not the underlying problem is that my standard is inconsistent above all. so if i have no base upon which to measure my consistency, WHAT DO i KNOW? If I am consistently inconsistant, that could be considered as consistincy in a sense. But if I am inconsistantly consestint, dus that make me consistint at all? In a sence, no, but perhaps then im conscisstant at least to some people. Am I trying too hard to please everybody? The more I think about it, being consistintly consistant or inconsistantly unconsistent are undesirable states. I would much rather be either unconsistantly consistent or consistently unconsistant. That way, I can at least make the excuse that I\’m not forcing things. But now I have so much doubt, I’m probably going to end up being inconsistuntly consistently unconsistent. What do you want people, What DO you want?

Just a thought.
I’ve been thinking about some of the experiences I’ve had so far in this life; things that repeat. Projects I start, people I meet. First times, Last times. At some point, there will be a first time and a last time for everything. I’ve been thinking about these. And how I don’t remember a lot of them. They can be wanted experiences, or unwanted ones.

If the first time and last time were both easy, then I grew through the experience.
If the first time was easy, and the last time hard, then the experience took away some challenge from my life.
If the first time was hard, and the last time easy, then the experience made made my life more challenging.
If both the first time and the last time were hard, then the experience made my life more full.