philosophy is a necessity

kate durbin's The Simone Weil Fashion Project has reached right out of the computer screen and done something unnameable to my heart. pairing sentences from weil's philosophic/spiritual work with High Fashion photography is a concoction that, at first glance, may seem to dance at the boarders of sacrilege (for lack of a better word), but serves to heighten the power of simone weil's work. this pairing, which seems so odd given the very pious nature of weil's search and writings, highlights in such a violent and gorgeous way one of the main themes in her work. the nature of love.

i have been infected by the project in a very wonderful way. i ordered Gravity and Grace (the book kate is currently culling quotes from) and it arrived yesterday afternoon. i sat on my chilly front stoop with it, not even making it back in doors after finding it in my mailbox. an hour later, i made some chamomile and kept reading. another hour, another hour, another hour. i took notes. i looked up and it was bed time.

it has shaken out of me the first sentence i've been waiting for. the sentence i needed in order to begin my dream essay, The Value of Sadness. it is begun. it could take a very long time to write but it is begun.

the sentence is one of simone's.

"Love is not consolation, it is light."

and i thought about light. the physical element by with sight is made possible. love is sight. seeing. and this says absolutely nothing about liking what we see. that thought was welcome the very second i had it. and kate's project very much illustrates this thought: love, as a mode or way of being/proceeding, having nothing to do with what is preferable or pleasurable to gaze upon. it is acquiring the ability to see things as the actually are, not what desire would oblige them to be. things, people, ideas unclouded by Wants.

these thoughts stick in and refuse to be pulled out. and this is good because i have no urge to pull them out. if anything, i feel like pushing the thorns in deeper. to the origin of my confusion, my pain, my ideas... and see what happens then. what light might be found.

an act of unclouding. shooing the swarm.

addendum...

i went and obeyed The Almighty Jog. i ran. i breathed hard. i paid attention to my body, how it moves, and the landscape it was moving through. they are crushing grapes today and the grapes must be for port because the aroma was so sweet and warm. it smelled like cookie dough almost. one of those wonderful, welcoming, comforting kitchen scents. mama's apron. gentleness. security.

and i thought about my previous post after the clarity of The Jog rushed in. i thought and i turned the words over and i realize that i didn't say what i wanted to say. i didn't say it exactly right. what the problem is pertains to attitude. my attitude. the choice, for however subconscious, to see things in a different way. in this case, a more narrow view than i'd looked at art with before. it isn't that i've stopped making certain kinds of work, it's that my attitude toward it changed. i stopped seeing it as art... even as practice. i gave primacy to painting, somehow believing that the drawings were secondary, not as relevant, not as powerful. and this is completely false. not only false but i've even managed to use it to beat myself up quite a bit. and if there's one thing that stalls a person's practice, it's negativity. because i have made progress. i have done a lot of work. a lot of good work. but my attitude has stopped me from seeing it. i've stopped trusting my own ideas and began chasing the ideas of others- the dominant assessment that the paintings are the best work i do and therefore the only work i should be focused on. this is an idea that has come from The Outside but i made it my idea as well.

that idea, to say it plainly, is really just preference. of course some people will prefer paintings to drawings. others will prefer music to the visual arts. and another group of people will say only philosophy matters and fuck every thing else. it's preference. the paths we choose are based on preference... what we're used to, what we know, how we like to move, the map we've got, the lens, the magnifying glass. it's just a preference of one tool over another. and so there's really no right way to proceed. there is no KING, there's just the thing that works best for you or for me or for whom ever.

painting and writing have always been my two big dogs. they always have. and i don't see that changing. but the other work feeds those things in such unexpected, beautiful, necessary, healthy ways. neglecting the other work has made it harder to paint, harder to write.

and this whole diatribe and the diatribe below is a result of noticing the end of the year draw near. i like the ritual of one season ending and another one beginning. i like the ritual of new year's resolutions for however cheesy it seems. i like them. i like to really think about what it is i really want and try to make small goals based on that. last year, the big resolution was to maintain this blog- to write every single day. i've done a pretty good job at that and i must say it has enriched my daily living in some very special, unexpected, unintended ways... all of which i am grateful for. it has made my practice wider and much more thoughtful. it's also made it a bit funnier, a bit sillier; it's made room for FUN again and that's a real blessing.

so i'm gearing up for resolution making, i suppose. new goals, new attitudes, new views. it takes a lot of introspection and it isn't always comfortable but i have to try my very hardest to be honest. i have to see things as they are, not as i'd like them to be, or clouded by all the shoulds and shouldn'ts. presuppositions are dangers.

i'm more interested in faith than dread. i want my day to mirror that.