I have plenty of difficult thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. As I recognize the necessity of incrementing the year on my journal entries for this nascent calendar, I remind myself of the fact that how we count our years in this global society is so ridiculously arbitrary. The seasons and the marking of them are indeed necessary to some degree, but we put too much emphasis on celebrating the birth of someone who frankly very likely never existed. For the popular worldview to still be caught up in such mythical nonsense is not only baffling, but it’s dangerous to the future of our species.

I’m overwhelmed by the prospect of deconstructing all that has come before. I have so much in my archives, and even posted on my web portal, that requires serious reexamination and much closer scrutiny. I ask myself constantly of the reasons I want to do this, my need to put all these words I’ve written into perspective. Which words still serve me, and will continue to serve others long after I am gone, and which must be scrubbed clean from the record? My intentions have changed so dramatically over the past four years, but the core mission of my art remains the same. I wish to share my rather curious and unfortunate life experience along with actionable advice to teach you all the lessons which I paid for dearly with my own flesh, blood, sweat, and tears, so that you won’t have to. 

The benefit of another’s experience is why literacy is so paramount to humanity’s continued existence. None of us are an island, as much as we wish we could be at times. At least we have each other, because in the end, praying and worshipping some invisible, imaginary friend who is also your Lord and Master is not just foolhardy, but limiting, depreciating, and downright bad for your mental and spiritual health, never mind physical health, too.

It’s funny that Emily brought up the subject of positioning first thing this morning. Because that’s the word I was looking for in regard to how I approach my writing and art in general going forward. No, she wasn’t referring to those sorts of positions. More so, how do I position myself in relation to what I’m saying? I’ve always been quite rough and overwhelming. Clearly I must consider the following: Am I coming on too strong? Am I distancing myself too much from the truth? And am I alienating my target audience by not addressing them directly? Who even is my target audience? Why should that even matter?

Emily and I are still in a holding pattern regarding the rest of our lives. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start making steps towards the people we still aspire to become. My big goal this year, really my only one, is to speak directly to those who, like us, have been relegated to the fringes, discredited, mistreated, and otherwise compromised by society at large. I suppose, then, that’s the target audience I’ve been seeking, and for whatever reason, Emily is the only one who has bothered to listen to me thus far.

I will continue to be sarcastic and irreverent, but it seems that the playfulness and casual silliness of the banter I enjoy with Emily and others I’ve been close to in the past gets lost when it hits the page. I’m not totally sure why. There’s a certain sterilization and homogenization I haven’t quite kicked from my academic days when it comes to self editing. Well, going forward, not just this year, I must choose to be a lot more brutal and honest. I will say some ugly things. I will be misinterpreted. But I am misjudged so distastefully as it is. I will also continue to bury my hatchet deep into the conventions of the literary world by planting adverbs in every sentence that I can, shamelessly and deliberately.

Since I’ve already done some writing today, I’ll be reading to recharge my creative batteries. But every day I’m going to make it a habit to do as much deconstruction as I can within the space of an hour. The issue has been burning myself out too quickly. I need to be mindful of my energy level and not strain myself so much. Timers are just not my favorite because setting arbitrary limits really pains me. Unlike most people, I’m more creative when I’m unleashed and unimpeded. Still, I need some sort of guardrails, loose enough to not overwhelm my sense of time and space, but tight enough to keep me from spending four straight hours piledriving my archives, journals, and reading logs. I need to space stuff out, but that’s hard to do when all you’ve got is free time. Of course, there is no such thing as free time. Time is our most valuable and precious resource, and I’ve spent enough time wasting time.