In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Thank you John. There is a quality in great the mechanism of the world requiring a certain amount of due paying before there is any amount of interest bearing. In art as well as life, most good things do not come easy and the things that do come easy will probably leave us easily as well. The harvest must be brought in just as surely as it is tended to through the growing season and lovingly planted during the seed. Even before this the rows must be tilled and the field needs to be kept in good condition. So it is with the crafts with which we chose to busy our lives, when, in reality, we come to the startling realization that the true craft is our lives. In the constant fires of death and rebirth, not in the metaphysical sense but in the daily sense, ideally life becomes less the opportunity to fall flat on our collective face. Men in the middle of Old Men and Boys forget their dreams and forget what it takes to be an artist. To be an artist is not easy, it takes dedication, struggle, death and rebirth, commitment to ideals and dreams with the dedication to carry out the patterns necessary to achieve greatness.
Men in the middle get caught in the ideas of dreams. What do these other men think of me? What does my wife think of me? What do my children think of me? My boss? Society? How does my church see me? How does God see me? How do i see myself? Boys don't think like this, they haven't yet danced with the devil in the blue dress, and, to be fair, it isn't the devil in the blue dress that causes the problem. It's the dance. Every time a boy gets out on the floor he sees the other boys. (As i write this, i realize i have authored this with a very gender specific bias, i use Old Men and Boys because i know them well. i believe women can and will relate. Please forgive me as i am still trying to become the art and artist i hope to be.) And as the boy sees the other boys a comparison begins, eyes start to wander, other dance partners, better shoes, "Hey that guy has a much cooler look than i do." The beginning of a long road of comparison. To be a Boy means having the opportunity to walk into places the first time without presuppositions. To be an Old Man means to realize all the trappings added to those things and places as a Man in the Middle is oft to do don't really mean a damn thing. Old Men know they will soon be entering back into the woven texture of the universe and the small, ephemeral, things added to the universe will surely fade. So it is with craft, art, and life. The fleeting things are just that, fleeting. All be it beautiful, they are quick for this earth, and for us. We must enjoy them while they are with us for surely they will pass. Those enduring things are those that have been well crafted and dedicated. The things that have tamed us.
So here we are trapped. We will be Boys, Men, and Old Men. Thus we have the confluence of art and craft and life. Some art is so great but is stolen from us so quickly; your mind can wander across the names and abbreviated collection of works these budding artists left with us before they died. Then we have a glut of the things in the middle, a place where we seem to have an influx of mediocrity. Unfortunately, there is so much mediocrity now some can make a lucrative living somewhere in the middle. At the end are the classics, museum works and books children will be taught for the rest of educational history. It is here that i have found myself. It took this long for me to set it up, but this isn't an essay on the understanding of quality. It is a journal entry, a digression into the question i have been utterly faced with over the last thirty minutes. The last couple of days. In fact, i think this is the question i have been faced with all of my life.
I used to be the Boy. I haven't been the Boy since i was 13. That's when i was hounded by the need for comparison, the first time i went to church and was saved. Immediately i was thrust into the battle arena where i wasn't good enough and needed to change who i was, i didn't understand ultimate sacrifice or transmutation. All i knew was i was lost and the cure was somewhere with in between those four walls. i was wrong. After a couple of years of being the darling project, the one who was the center of a bright universe, a universe where i was doted upon with attention and training, something changed. enter the new project. suddenly others began entering the dance. there were all these other Boys crowding my space on the dance floor, i didn't understand it nor did i like it. i was furious and confused. so i did what i could to emulate them. burrowing deep into my psyche this abandoning of my own ideas and identity. this is where things began to be unhinged. the structure of the church began to fail as i grew older and fell out of reach of those who could control me as a youth.
as the shackles of the system fell off i thought my shackles were falling off. once again i was wrong. the thing, and thing that i still believe i have to try and be aware of, that is my greatest, and i believe Man's greatest flaw is the need for comparison to the great unknown. we are never content to our position or what we can create through dedication to craft, or our ability to create art in our life or form. we are afraid we are missing out. Or we have seen another one of the boys dancing and our mouths have salivated at what he has or holds in his arms and have forgotten completely what we have in our own. so i disintegrated. i drank myself into oblivion. i spiralled into debt, into the lifestyle, the party. i became the image i thought i was supposed to be. i became the Man in the Middle. the Boy i used to be would have tried to kick my ass, he would have lost because the Man in the Middle fights out of fear so he has an immense amount of power, but the Boy would not have cared because he would have gotten the point across. The Man in the Middle constantly fights and loses because he never measures up. It is never good enough, whatever he does it is never enough. i have been this man, this Man in the Middle for at least 12 years. It is only striking me now how important it will be that i make the transition from Man in the Middle to Old Man, and make it soon.
That's the problem with time, you can not go backwards (at least not in a traditional sense). i can not become a shooting star, the chances of me becoming a jimi hendrix or vincent van goh are slim. however what i can not do is stay in the middle. to maintain the mind of the Man in the Middle is taxing and would be the death of me, and has been the hardship of my heart and the cause of many tears. the only option is to press on into having the heart and mind of the Old Man. for those who read this and will get trapped in the vernacular i will plainly say this has nothing to do with the gerontological studies. to have the heart of the Old Man means to have pressed on until you have achieved your voice again. to let the trappings of life fall away. to be willing to walk around with yellow plaid pants or no pants at all. to be free from the confines and structures we have placed upon ourselves and those that have been placed upon us. to be truly free, to be art and to create art in ourselves and outside ourselves.
so what's the catch? this sounds grand doesn't it? everyone pressing on until true art is achieved? the catch is that the road is narrow. it is hard, it is riddled with hardship and loss, there is pain and suffering. to be an artist means to fail, to continue to cast your line even though a fish does not rise. i believe it is a matter of heart, we all have competing natures within us, awakened by when we first noticed the mystical clockwork of the universe. so in one breath all my heart will want normalcy, i will want the quick fix, the drunken brawl to express dominance, the Man in the Middle screams for the things of comfort, things without dedication. then in the next breath i want something deeper, an eternal connection to the ever real, the connection to immortality that i believe exists. i want to be art and to create art, i want to love completely even though i do not have complete understanding. so here i stand at the great dividing waters in my life, i live and work in a world where so many people easily choose to be Men in the Middle. i can not do this. i will not do this. to even say those words seem dangerous, to know the ups and downs it will take, to know life is not a work of art makes these lines bitter sweet.
i hold out hope then, that some day this is what i shall be: a man who has loved well, an artist who has left his mark on the mortal and immortal. a work of art who has been transformed and re-transformed time and time again for numerous purposes. i will remember i am made of dirt, and to dirt i will return, that without great humility great art is smug and pompous and holds better place in a fireplace than in a gallery. i will remember that as easily as i breath words out i am but a breath. i am words in the story and part of the woven story of the universe, eventually all things merge into one and i too will graciously take my place. i hope to have a thankful heart, a place where i encourage and bless those around me and those far away. to have a mind and Spirit engaged in the great conversation with the One who first spoke to me. thank You for speaking, i am grateful i heard and could return if only a meager volley with You. You awoke me from a deep slumber from which i was most assuredly sleeping in the middle of grey scale, thank you for the world of color, may i do You proud most of all.
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