Ramble: Meaning

I know everyone thinks I’m full of shit when I start talking about my art and being an “artist”. Maybe they think I’m just some weird as shit motherfucker who refuses to accept reality. But they don’t understand. And all one can hope for is to be understood. It is the crowning achievement of an artist’s career when someone, anyone fully understands what went into creating a work of art and what you as the artist was trying to say. Yesterday I had a moment of clarity that took my breath away. It was as if I was looking directly at my life’s path set in front of me, all disjointed and broken, then suddenly, magically, it all lined up and made perfect sense. I know what I want to do and I have a vague notion of how to do it. I have to be clear. I want to translate life. We all feel emotions and go through experiences, but it is how we describe them that makes for great writing. It’s fine to be happy, but what kind of happiness is it? Where could it have come from? Was there a moment in childhood that reminds you of this happiness now and does it scare you, excite you, make you nervous to feel that unguarded again? Is the joy real or is it an attempt to cover the layers of sadness and withered hope you held onto for so long before burying it along with that old childhood self? What does it feel like in the moment and does it matter if it will last forever or for the next few seconds? Or if a character is feeling sad, is it that hopeless sadness that feels like it might never end lest you end it yourself, physically, dramatically, permanently? Does it overtake you so that even the slightest provocation leads to tears, and even the funniest joke can bring to life the laugh that is so familiar to your own ears? Are you someone else completely when you’re depressed, or is it just a natural state? I want to write to open people’s eyes to who I am, and by extension, who they are. I want to be able to touch someone’s heart and send that feeling of unknown energy, fuzzy and electric that seems to shift the way you see for a split second, making everything brighter and richer, to make the heart race with excitement. I want to articulate everything I feel to the best of my abilities. To write with passion and urgency, as if there was nothing else in the world at that moment but me and these words flowing from my heart and mind into my fingers darting quickly over the keyboard and onto a white piece of electronic paper. Here it can become something more than just what I’m feeling, some private suffering. Out in the world, on this white sheet, it becomes real, not just for me, but for whomever chooses to read it. and when they read it, maybe they’ll find some connection with those words and they will retreat into their heads to become something private for them. That’s as close to love as we can ever hope to come.