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| Audrey Kawasaki. I'm pretty sure she literally does nothing else at all but this and its beautiful |
Have you ever had an itch? Not the kind that beautiful organisms like crabs can provide.
I mean an itch. A nagging need, to do something specific.
I don't mean,
Fucking
sleeping
eating
drinking...
drugs
alcohol
work.
I don't mean going out to get wasted, or to engage in superficial interactions and call them social events.
I mean a burning desire to invest yourself into something that may very well only captivate You and you alone.
Is there something you obsess over so much, that when you engage it, you lose track of all time. Bending so unapologetic to the strange hunger that you simply have no concept of it... it seems to last forever, but then end far to early.
Do you know what you like?
Have you ever really stopped to think. "What do I believe?" "What do I really think?" "what do I really want?" "what do I really like to do?"
Do you drift through life from moment to moment, and engage only on the most trivial of levels with the world around you.
Could you sit in a room by yourself with nothing else, and not entertain yourself with the incredible dialogues of your own ideas on that which you are most passionate about?
No?
Then you are passionless.
I encounter a lot of people, who really genuinely don't seem to have any hobbies or interests beyond a superficial appreciation. People who genuinely, come home from 8 hours or more of work and don't do anything.
People who also seem to have no interest in how existence works and whats going on in the world. They seem caught up in reality TV or Famous people, or money or buying things. You ask them their opinion on something but they don't really known enough to care, and are not interested in trying.
I find it... gross.
I try not to be judgemental and always objective.. but with this I cannot help it, I will definitely admit to having an extreme sort of discrimination against this type of person.
Really its just more of a shame I suppose, but I do know there is nothing more beautiful to me than when I see people who are passionate about something.
Now I will preface this by saying there are some types of passionate that, when misguided can piss me off more than anything (religious or political zealots. Conspiracy theorists), but those are not the types I'm talking about
One night when I was in a hotel in California while doing some training for my job. It was about the second night I had been there and I was still not use to the time zone differences. It was probably about 12 AM in San Jose but in Baltimore it was about 3 AM. I was trying to keep myself up to get use to the time difference, rapidly flipping through channels for something to watch. I had just about given up when I stopped on some type of spoken word performance. I had no idea what it was... but as I watched it I became so emotional that by the end of the performance.. I was weeping like your girlfriend at that movie " the Notebook".
Here's a preview for that program, I later found out it was called, " Brave New Voices"
This is from the 2010 grand finals, look it up and watch it if you can.
I had no idea what was happening to me, I had never seen any like it. Such, raw, uncensored passion, pure and eloquent. It unwound knots of emotion in me that spilled out from my face and by the end of the hour long program I was weak and drained from it. It wasn't just that a lot of the content was sad, no. I had never seen slam poetry like this before. These were young people, screaming at the top of their lungs, the most honest and passionate things I had ever heard. Young people Demanding to be heard by everyone about every current topic and about life.
I wasn't crying because I was hurt by their painful experiences, I cried because I was hurt by hope. The hope that in reality, this world is not a colorless as it seems, that the Human race, holds more to it than just the zombification that seems to be our future. I've never seen anyone express their anger, or sadness or nostalgia in such a honest way. Passionate people, who are emotional about the world they live in and the state that its in. The innocence they have lost and how they cope with existence.
Yeah, I've seen art, Ive seen talent, I've seen the confidence of skill and had my breath catch in my throat at the awe of genius. But passion, this was something that I had long forgotten existed in the world except for that which I felt. To see it reflected, broke down every barrier I had and I was happy for it.
I realized that there are even things I love which lack that passion, and I had no Idea. Music seems like such a key representation of it but in reality, so much of music is packaged and sold to us that it too is passionless. Especially now a days, we listen to music that tries to emulate, an existence, a passion that we felt way back when and now, these shadows of what was, have us nodding our heads trying to get that feeling back. Believe me, the current iterations of the music you love will not make you feel the same as when it was innovative and passionate.
Don't get me wrong, there will be moments, certain artists or songs that bring it out of you, Like this Song by Janelle Monae
Honesty, Passion.
Believe me, the difference between the first time I heard bands like Poison the well and Hopesfall or Wu-tang and the music I hear now will never effect me the same, with the few rare exceptions. I realize its why I began listening to older music. Much older music, symphonic music, string quartets, by Shostakovitch and Vivaldi. Feeding off of the sad melodies and suddenly passionate build ups, the complexity that bled every ounce of emotion from me. I sought out the simple honesty of old folk and country music, big band and early 1900s music, the misery but hopefulness of chain gang chants. Early hardcore the sound of desperate youth. Early hip hop, the sound of a battered race, that from experience created an incredible culture.
Even art and writing.. mediums, to tell information. It took me a long time to understand that my penchant to draw and write were passions to generate information which I am passionate about, Ideas and story arcs. But even in art that is not narrative in itself, there is information that fills me with excitement.
A few of my favorite Artists Ashley Wood and Bengal,
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| Ashley Wood |
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| Bengal |
Images of Woman and robots and intense color. Seemingly obvious because they are well done and pretty, but what do I see that underlies the complex lines and color palletes, is the simple LOVE of the human body. The absolute passion for female curves and shapes that I share with these artists is delicately arched into existence, and fine tuned. The love for mechanical things and a vision of color. An artist can narrate such passions and you might never know it because he or she did it because they love it. You might never even have seen what they have done and it wouldn't matter, they do it for themselves.
90 percent of the art and writing I do is just for me.. even the studying I do is just for me. I feed on knowledge, and understanding like its all that exists in the world. Most of you who know me realize that at every moment of any day I am lost in a constant day dream and that even while you are talking at me, I'm on a sort of auto pilot, giving you the most minimal prerecorded answers possible (mostly so you will leave me alone).
I promise I will explain why, in another blog post. Just know for now it has to do with an uncontrollable passion.
If there is something that you would drop everything to do. Something that wouldn't necessarily make you rich or even earn you money, but that you could just do all day without having to worry about anything else.
If there is something in this world that makes you go " Hey.. Hey wait this.. This moves me! I'm not a ghost, I am a passionate human being"
Rejoice because it is a beautiful and seemingly rare thing.
Anyway..
Ill see you in hell
-We Are Hell
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