Writers block and Wrecking Balls -- Not advice, or quote, or wise.

I think this is about the third time I've opened this up now and still don't really have anything new. They say there is nothing new under the sun but after a massive six months of this I'd be concerned if I was repeating myself without any changes, without any growth.

The thing is people still come and go from lives drifting in and out. People still disappoint and let you down, surprise you and if they're good build you up. Uni is a challenge which one should work harder at and I'm not as fit as I could be. Want to practice more of those instruments and continue to try new things and get back into those things I no longer have been able to make time for.

I have over the last six months always wanted to write about all those quotes and wisdom statements you see on the internet and Facebook. So many people comment on them and like them. Yet I've found often if I spend 30 seconds looking at it, the quote is a poor one. In fact it will generally be a hopelessly romanticized way to see the world. It does not work and can not work. We all subscribe to this wonderfulness and really its not wonderful, its despairing. That is not to say there are no good quotes, no good wisdom statements, no good observations on the human reality. On contra ire they're just not popular (on the whole).

I think one of the most touted pieces of advice is, 'be yourself'. I honestly have no idea what that means. Does it mean I should do what I think I should do, because that is what I'm already doing. Or does it mean I should do what I feel is right regardless of the rules and standards around me, but that is really dangerous. What if I believe in culling the stupid?! Now I'm not suggesting all advice and wisdom has to be universal. Just well thought out. Just because someone likes a sentiment doesn't mean it is a useful or helpful sentiment. Often it is just a reflection of a place we used to be in. An example of a connection to a past which no longer exists.

So next time you see a 30 great quotes web page or someone posts something on Facebook, look at them and wonder to yourself does it mean anything? does it help me now? In the end that's what you need it for and maybe it would be nice to reflect on how nice it would be if things could be that simple.

I'm OK -- Arts and Mediocrity

I'm not sure about a lot of things. I try to make things as black and white as I can, it's easier to deal with them that way. I know they are not and I know that can limit things in many ways. Recently I have in my rather limited spare thinking time been mulling over art, what people consider art, what meaning does this art have and what constitutes art. I was tempted to write those arts down as 'art' to try and show the lose meaning of the term but I think you guys have got that one.

The point of this is that I love music and I go to art galleries on occasion and half the things I hear and see have about as much meaning to me as a the scratched graffiti on the train I'm on. There is quite probably a strong argument that the majority of music in the top 40 has no meaning what so ever. To take a look at the most popular Miss Minaj...
"I get it cracking like a bad back
Bitch talkin' she the queen, when she looking like a lab rat
I'm Angelina, you Jennifer
Come on bitch, you see where Brad at
Ice my wrist's then I piss on bitches
You can suck my diznik if you take this jizzes
You don't like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, givin this the business
Cause I pull up and I'm stuntin' but I aint a stuntman"

Like really?! This drivel is mainstream pop music. Something that is still often considered part of the arts? How does this further anything or anyone. Self-aggrandising bullshit. It has little meaning, does it make me look at things in a different light? Maybe, but I don't think it's an overly helpful light. The thing that gets me is there are some truly talented people out there but we are drowned by mediocrity. When did it become good to be just OK.

Y0u ask people what they think of things and they say it was OK. That's not good enough. Passes are often 50% since when is it OK to propagate a position based on half accurate data, I'm thankful for 50% and there is always space to improve but are we OK with half right? Surrounded and drowning in mediocrity where things strive to be OK. Each human has so much potential there is no reason why others can't do as I have. I'm not anything special really. With the exceptions of the truly upper limits most of us are fit in that bell curve and we can move in that curve. I don't know if there is any limit to my potential. If I was a little less lazy and a little more organised I'd move in my curve for sure. I'd be more, I'd be better. In the meantime I suppose I am who I am and well I could try harder. Would like to work out why I don't. Why I'm not a better person. If there are answers to such things.

I think this is why there is art.  As an idea of a moment. The moment around a feeling, a scene, an idea, a time. Something that we feared and in our awe were taken in its rapture. The pain, the beauty, the wonder. All of these things are so much the maths doesn't do it justice. I wish some of the stuff out there wasn't ok.