Stupid thoughts race through my head. This is my art form. This is what I want to express. Do I want to make the world a better place? Is it through rational or emotional string pulling? Where am I off to? What am I hoping to accomplish. This is my problem. I can be rational. I can present arguments—hell, that’s what I do every day, why couldn’t I transfer that knowledge here? I can edit, I can display, I can do a whole bunch of good stuff. The question is, as it always becomes, why don’t I? I may draw and that might be something I end up bringing to this form. In short, I am searching for my art form, for my way of expressing myself. Why do I even want to express myself? Do I want to leave a mark on the earth when I pass? Do I want to educate or make the world a better place?

I know what I’m not good at: I can’t think up stories, or at least I can’t initiate them. I need an impetus, a foil. I’m not sure where or how that will come into being. Even now, as I tatter away on this keyboard in the back of the van, I’m not sure what I’m hoping to accomplish. I’m tittering and tattering away in my feeble attempt to find an art form. This has been the goal of sewcrates.com: to find a voice for art. It took me a while to discover art, to understand it as something other than the realistic duplication of the real world. My original view of art asked the question of how to duplicate what I see every day. What I didn’t realize at the time was that that is what art is, but the every day is such a subjective term, and what a person sees in the everyday is not what they see (as in photographically see), but what they feel, they think about, who they are, etc. There is so much more information than what one sees, that it’s a wonder it took me so long to find out that realism does not equal art. I’m slow sometimes, I see that now. I didn’t understand that before.

So if my art form is a search for a way of expressing what I perceive, then two questions come to mind: how do I do that? And to what end? For the second question, I should assume I do that for the reason anyone communicates: it is the hope to make a connection with another person. For all the “art for art’s sake” bullshit that flies about, the answer seems clear. It is not about acceptance or adoration, it’s about communication and connection. Saying something that someone else hears. So I want to communicate and connect. That makes sense for the end. But how about the how, how do I do it?

Part of it is obvious: I write words. This is what I enjoy doing and what I’m moderately good at. I put one word after another and I hope that they say something. As I’ve been doing it, however, it’s been lacking. I’ve been brushing up on the grammar and style, and forgetting about the content. That’s what I’m hoping to find. There is content out there, and I need to find out how to say it. I’ve discovered the what, now I need to find the how. Pictures, words, stories, musings, thoughts, feelings. It has to be something that someone wants to read, otherwise there is no way I will make a connection, no way I will communicate with anyone (w/the exception of the dedicated three).

I’m feeling a bit sick sitting in the van and typing this. I’m not sure if it’s the coffee or the bumps. Either way, I’m done for now.

***

“Hello, Jon?” And he keeps talking and hoping. Why does he care so much? Annoying as hell, it is. I need a nap, once I nap maybe then I’ll be able to move beyond this not napping. This is not working so well. This morning writing with no idea of where to go. I need to plan. Use the Marathon’s method: plan the night before what you’re going to write the next day. Think it through. I have all day of idle (well, not exactly idle) time to work this through. Ah, I have nothing. No plans, no work, no nothing. Hang up. Please, hang up. The pain of the fake conversation is too painful.