muse modulated

Restarting my correspondence was not easy. I had not written to her lately, at least not in the same tones that were used before.

And I had forgotten that she is made of muse -- inspiring in her articulate suffering: Woman as aesthetic catalyst -- living in a place where there is little public respect for artists, she needs to provide the fuel for her art from within.

This makes her self-sufficient, but also an intensely self-immolating person.

Sometimes she fails to meet the conditions for (as she puts it) being aesthetic, due to environment, personality shifts, or changes of the like. She writes of this loss of confidence:

"I have stopped painting because of a painful realization that my worldview is not universal or transcendent, but provisional and particular; not a product of authentic experience, but of obscurantist theorizing. I felt terrible. Although I could readily recognize genius in others, I was somehow always inadequate in my thoughts, and would hide my confusion behind the politely expansive interpretations that one affords a public 'artist'.

Yet I hesitate to call myself an artist. No doubt my categories are confused. I don't know what I am. The more knowledge I acquire, the more uncertain it makes me."

Later, much later, her confidence returns and she gains a little perspective:

"I suppose I can tell you what has preoccupied me since we last spoke. Let's see... I've started painting again. This time the medium is different.

It's an underground 'journal', meant for an audience of one. Its primary purpose is self-modulation.

Yet I am still miserable: a misery tempered by the knowledge that these sky-sought or downcast curves are largely chemical, a consequence of vitamins and cornflakes, of abstinence and exercise. i.e that my moods are controllable, and not due to the unique human condition that afflicts me and only me.

Someone, something has disconnected me from my immediate surroundings today. I don't only feel lonely, I feel empty and useless."

Of course, she has her occasional highs too:

“How are you? Happy with people (aforementioned species, self-appointed teachers, professors, smile-conquered slaves, friends, new-friends, about-to-be-friends, friends-to-be-lovers, lovers-to-be-non-friends) amused, nervous, sad-sometimes, wanting-to-be-alone-sometimes, million-miles-of-up-sometimes? and work? the objects of desire? are they kind to you?

Uncertain statement: it is difficult but not impossible to maintain relations within a consistent group, interests rarely intertwine outside the night, people get bored of one another and, since substitution is the most popular practice here, the unfortunate many of the efficient society usually find out in no uncertain time when others have no time for them.

Yes-No-society. made for machines. authentic human exchange please everyday please. sincere empathetic understanding please. no, not there. by the peas. please.

(defining from the hip)

IDcrisis is the common affliction of the need-to-be-different: odd disoriented tourist, self-styled performance artist unfortunate enough never to be told just how bad his art is, capitalist revolutionary to conquer the world by selling it --- all need to be "hip" to what's happening (to know about something before the masses get to it) without seeing that the very use of the category disqualifies one from membership to the set it describes.

The common urbane wolfe: analytically spontaneous and spontaneously analytical, living according to the unspoken creeds: "be calculating but sincere", "measure and live the moment", "cruelty and love are coterminous", "destroy (politely) every obstacle that stands in your way"

Excess. ustinkofdecadence. excessive. fat full of selfhood. willingly or otherwise, i join in: substantial or otherwise, no time to do anything but see limits surpassed, values tested. obey the orgy to be -- more efficient in the use of my everyday, more productive, more material, more excessive in effect, more-machine. less-human-all-too-human...