Happy Birthday, Mom

She was born February 12, 1908. She died February 19, 1969. I still miss her; and wish her well in heaven or hell.

Giving Birth to Inertia

I'm finding it hard to create in a world (think partisan politics) that doesn't seem to believe in the possibility of objectivity any more. In such a perceived world does one create only for oneself, knowing that "beauty is [only] in the the of the beholder."

Is that what "being lonely in a crowd" means: one's writing, talking, reading echoes into nothingness; I have the illusion I hear others but I am only hearing the sound of my own voice, even when others seem to be doing the uttering? In such a world, do we humans share nothing in common, except our inevitable separateness?

As I read post-modern world (with its modern politics and art), all truths are essentially subjective. Does that mean they are also inevitably invalid; except to ourselves...or perhaps even to ourselves?

I am finding it hard to give solid form to any idea when the world believes that all ideas are individualized opinions. How does one give concrete logical form (words) when readers believe only in their personal uniqueness and not group consensus. Absent a shared human experience, I find writing becoming an act of flailing, a momentary release of individual pain (a singular, unshared shout of failure), and not a successful attempt to corral that pain into a remediation through agreement.

I thought I wrote to make other's shout "Yes, that's me," believing that the common identity will heal us both in the process. But maybe I am wrong; not only are we destined to die alone, we must also live alone.

The brilliant novelist Pat Conroy once offered that we read to find out we are not alone. I assume he meant by that we also talk, write, paint and sing for the same reason. But increasingly in this post modern world the crowd is defined only an image of oneself. In fact, there is no crowd, just reiterations of me. And, even worse, I am just a reiteration of nothing fixed or constant either, since every vantage point--even me of myself--moves on its own time and space continuum. In such a world, I find myself losing contact with reality; or question that there is reality. I fragment into pixels, suspended between oscillations of 0 and 1. The picture, the word, the phrase, the paragraph, the essay, are non-existent. I am not really alive; it is just another of my ephemeral illusions.

All this leads creativity to paralysis, and a desperate attempt to address--and redress--why I haven't written here for many weeks.

I have written now. Huzzahs! And hopefully you will identify with this blather, this shameless attempt to re-energize my computer-word-entering fingers; and forgive.