existential crisis

Smoked too much, panic’d, crap. had to try to sleep. Too much emotion and repression. It takes me a while to feel the pain. How should I live my life? Just gotta keep going man, go go go! There was a beat festival going on in Tompkins park recently, I like thems. How should i live my life? too many options, shit what do I do? Live your life until you are through. Go for the Gonzo, go for the gold.

Why is everyone trying to distract me from what I want? what do I want? shit everything I once loved has faded away. Except for this, except for this. So hard to see the path, that leads me through, to where I belong. That mix of cosmic determinism and individual freedom that exists for every person in every moment.

God, culture shock. The life of the unhappy urban professional, failed artist. Beautiful in a way, how did mom and dad live? La vie boheme? They were academics yo, but took the back roads. Mom dropped out (after phd), lives her life for her family, best she can. She’s happy, but what about your dreams?

Dad is a mystery to me, my source of pride and ambition sometimes. Sometimes feel like a soul sucking defeat. Dad, are you happy? Can you look back and be happy? I guess that’s what I really want when I grow up, to be able to look back and be happy. Thank God, but sometimes it feels so hard to find nirvana.

And so I’m dancing on the edge, who am I? How did I get here? Culture shock between when I’m awake and when I’m asleep. Am I dreaming? Some sort of nightmare? Living here in this mess so afraid, too afraid to do what is right, what I want to do, to be. Piles of clothes, boxes in disarray. Shit, I can’t even go to bed on time. Bills to pay, money money money. GOD I NEED A NEW JOB!

But can I afford it? I need to pull back man, gone too close to the edge, just step on back, step back to the friendly voices inside your head. The ones that tell you how to live how to eat how to breathe. Voices that speak out across millenia; Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha, King. Can I be a saint? Should we try? Can I accept my failings? I am no monk, I am no saint. I’m just a scared kid after all, stuck in a very frightening world.

I have good friends, good family. They comfort me, provide succor when I am down, and I hope I can begin to repay them. You and your sister go to the store, you intending to get a jacket, her intending to buy a skirt. At the end of the day you have bought a skirt, and she has bought a jacket, and you give them as gifts. You both have what you wanted, but you also have brought more joy, more love, into this world. Wisdom from The Pool.

I like comparative literature I’ve decided. My mom raised me in her image after all. I understand art best through shared meaning with other art. The messages are imperfect in symbology, like a game of telephone that’s been going on forever and ever. But with enough messages, you can understand A Message, if not The Message. A Message for you, made through you, by everyone you’ve ever tried to understand, and all those that influenced the world before to infinity. I’m trying to understand the Bible from a Buddhist mind, and Zen Koans with a Christian morality. And vice versa I’m sure.

abstract painting ITT