What follows is a zygote of an idea. Once a week I will be posting snap shots of my current writing project. All posts will be titled “The Original Whatever”. “When humans know themselves, the rest of nature is right there” – Gary Snyder
It’s 4am, the “non-time of day”…an unspeakable point of the day. Picture this: desk lamp on, computer screen at full brightness, the wall clock has stopped. I sit to write. I’m wearing boxer shorts that are 15 years old, a tank top that is well over 20 years old and just experienced that moment when your breath turns into morning breath (my wife is such a lucky person). I smell funny and it feels like there is no oxygen in the air. This is a dreadful mix of when sleeplessness, madness and the creative impulse equals schizophrenia. No wonder why all great writers go insane. Four o’clock in the morning is not meant for the living.
This is my second attempt at writing chapter 3. Chapter 1 and 2 went well. I passed out a zygote draft to friends and strangers and got feedback. Some people even said they found the writing to be motivational. This is not good. Motivational books end up in the discount bin quickly. Motivational books become trendy for an instant and cheesy for a life time. I can see it, my face on a book with an award winning smile and 99-cent sticker plastered on my forehead.
Have you noticed how much people love to be motivated, but hate to follow through on the effort part? Remember, people hate effort especially when it entails that they have to do something.
Motivational speakers, this is something that people love. Again this is not good for me because I am writing at 4am and speaking to no one. There is a definite criteria to being a motivational speaker and if you do not fit the criteria bad things will happen to you.
1. You have to be tall, at least over six feet.
2. Caucasian
3. Must have extremely white teeth.
If you do not have these three attributes then you cannot be a motivational speaker. People who think of themselves as motivational and do not have these attributes are simply people who like to egg other people on. These are the people who think that they are right on everything. I hate these people.
There have been only two people in recorded history that have been motivational speakers without the aide of the three traits. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, but note they were both tall with extremely white teeth, and Jesus. He was motivational as well, but he is tall and white in all the pictures that I have ever seen him in.
Life does not turn out good for people who are motivational speakers but do not have the 3 traits. Jesus, Gandhi and MLK all ask us to place effort into “love thy neighbor” and they got assassinated. Seriously not funny…fuck don’t you just hate humanity at times?
The good news is that Jesus told us the “meek shall inherit the earth”. This is good news for all humanity. I personally know the Meek family and what they plan to do with their inheritance.
Their plan is quite nice as long as you do not like Mexican food or Austria. The Meeks hate Mexican food and have plans to completely eradicate it from the face of the Earth. Goodbye to Austria, the entire continent has to be removed from the planet to pay off the inheritance tax. The previous owners, the brothers Evolution and Creationism, who by the way could never get along, were just going to give the continent over to the global warming franchise to put the kibosh on all the mixed messages being reported by the media. Goodbye Mexican food, goodbye Austria, say hello to environmentally sustainable living, all credited to the Meek-inheritance-family-plan. I told you bad things happen to those who try to be motivational who do not possess the quality of being tall, Caucasian with extremely white teeth.
Last night’s conversation was focused around the language of art. Sitting in a well-laid out office with a pair of web/graphic designers I was able to speak fluently in art-ease. It was nice. Often artists have to speak in parables, examples and metaphors to be understood. It’s not that the language of art is complicated, but rather it is a language of “feeling”, which can be problematic. The syntax of art-academics is easily understood, but the culture of communicating a “feeling” is hard to express to someone who is not involved in a compositional practice.
