So I was in estonia for 10 days. Saw people, had conversations, walked around, thought about things and then cancelled all shows, photoshoots and videoshoots because I wanted to go back home. I was not feeling good. In fact, I was feeling the polar opposite of good. You have a physical pain and everyone understands. You have emotional anguish and they all become your doctor.
Been home since monday evening, not doing much. Reading, writing. No music or exercise. Watching shows, eating junk food and trying to find some meaning in this struggle. But finding none. The anxiety is gone and it has been replaced with an almost calming depression. I choose to feel this way and to be here doing what I do. It’s not that I don’t want happiness and all that shit but this seems to be more important so I stay here.
I enjoy the calm. The solitude. The silence. And if there is sound, I prefer to fill the space with music rather than humans. As I write I am listening to Elgar’s Enigma Variations. A mentor of mine told me this week that music has devolved in the last century, reflecting the decay of society. I don’t know if he’s right but listening to this music seems to suggest something along those lines. I relegated his mentor status because I’m not worthy.
Music used to require great skill and patience. And the standards were higher so it was a path you had to really commit to. Now all you need is a pair of headphones, a laptop and a 12 week online course and you are good to go. You will probably even be more successful than the virtuous poets and artists who are still stuck in the past, refusing to let go of something precious that seems to be dying as the robots take over. Can a robot suffer?
If not, they will never create art because the very need for it arises out of a thirst for joy and beauty. What need would there be to quench a thirst that is never even felt? True creativity comes from an urge so strong, it is a matter of life and death. Like a delirious wanderer on his knees in the desert who has lost all hope, only to be resuccitated by a faint image of an oasis somewhere on the horizon.
Our suffering is what makes us human. And the need to transcend this suffering is what makes us religious. Robots have no need for art or religion.
I tried to bridge that gap between headphone-newage-midi-romantic with the epic-composer-prophet with my last project Vicevoids. But it never really found the wings it needed to fly. So the songbirds returned to the nest, and I took care of them. I caressed them gently and fed them and was grateful they hadn’t been eaten by bigger birds or swallowed by airplane turbines. Now I rule proudly as birdmaster from my little empire on the border of russia, while the cold wind howls outside. Putin and the other leaders will never see us coming. We make Navy Seals and SAS look like sandbox toddlers.