Homeland

It's been a time since I've written, and this is because I haven't felt like writing about the triviality of my life. Seems as though I'm throwing a pity party for myself each day. All about me. I love school, but I focus on MY accomplishments (or lack thereof), MY struggles, the pain of MY unrequited love.

But when I am home, I'm in my element: in God's country, able to watch the sun set each night; able to learn from the raw honesty of my father...the steady and hardy heart of my mother; the innocent (though naive) wanderings of my little brother as he struggles to make a meaning of this thing called high school; the quite confident and strangely effective life advice from my older brother. My family is my element, where love holds no doubt.

And this is why life becomes a tad more terrifying. Soon, I'll be thrust out of my element and onto the streets of independence. I know this is good and normal...normally good for young people, but I never want to lose sight of those sunsets and the authenticity of life on the farm. I am afraid of losing good work ethic and a gratitude for simplicity. I'm applying to graduate schools in big cities (like Chicago), which means I move: toward a lot more people with ideas different than my own; a different kind of stubbornness and work ethic, authenticity; a more complex way of life.

But, alas, I can't be so judgmental and I can't be so unbelieving in the virtues that stand where I have grown up. The strength of family and the strength of the Lord is with you and me always. He will hold steadfast. There is some sort of plan in the works, which will carry over into Chicago or New York or Europe...wherever I may take a gander at adventure. And there the Lord will be. There I will be. Maybe "he" will be there, too, where unrequited love won't float around anymore.

Ah, well, I guess this may have been another pity party speech; another in a progression of others, but, hey, I say, make it about me but the me in relation to others. Family, friends, future walk-ons, fellow humans, citied or not - whatever that means. Maybe I'll find out soon. All the while, my heart belongs to the sunset just behind the hill next to my home...until I meet someone who can smile just as big and bright, so I can do the same right back.

Good Lord of life, here we go.

cognition, creation, comprehension

And this is my stream of consciousness at 3 a.m...

I might be an abstract expressionist, not just on a canvas but also in my dreams, thoughts, and view of the world. I am a being of feeling, of emotion. Though I am also rational, I connect the dots of sensory experiences with feelings and experiential emotions.

As theorists point out, “an artist need not have the feeling in question in order to express it (Freeland 156).” Many people will tell me that they experience emotions all at once or more than one at a time: angry and sad at the same time; loathing and lusting at the same time, happy and sad at the same time. I think we can feel all of these emotions in a minute’s time, but none of them at the exact same time. It’s impossible. I’m beginning to sound like a philosopher. It could be because of this class or because of my current course in philosophy. Or, maybe I’ve always been a philosopher.

As I continue, I wonder how an abstract expressionist and philosopher go together. This could end up being another one of my self-discovery writings, but there is no harm in that. See, there I go philosophizing again.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel the monotony of life: the fact that I have to wake up to another day that ends at the same time, that is filled (for now) with many of the same people. My face is the same. My eyes are still the same color. My heart is still mine, and it will continue to feel this day. On the other hand, my face is mine! And my eyes are the same color! And I’m going to feel in my heart that this day is for feeling…for newness, for growth.

Life is monotonous. It is also fresh each day. Is it possible to be these two things at the same time? Opposition could be relative, just as multitasking with multiple feelings could really happen. I am a philosopher because I think in theory and I base it on knowledge and experience. I am an abstract expressionist because, as you can read in this paper, I am experiencing utter confusion about the mumbo jumbo I am writing, and I am creating this work of writing (or art) about it. I think that’s the jest of it. Narrowing things to the jest generally helps me simplify the idea. I am a confused, empathetic, and admittedly wishy-washy person. Though I hate these terms sometimes because of their derogatory notions. This writing is abstraction: freedom from representational qualities in art; the state of preoccupation; the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes or concrete accompaniments.

But I ask, why should things be stuck in concrete form all the time? Why can’t something work independently of its connotations, cultural assumptions, and art world criticism? It’s because we are human, I’ve figured out, that we understand things in concrete form and in context. This is art. Even though an artist’s work may be abstraction, we still have to put it into a concrete box to digest it, associate it with either the artist’s intention, our reaction and interpretation, and our judgment. I wish to be free of this monotony.

The fresh factor must be transcendent of the concrete box of this world. I believe that the nature of this God exists, and he wants us to feel it, but not necessarily understand it.

Auto

It's that time of year...when the car companies start introducing their newest and best work, dubbing the new machines 2011 models. Oh, the work undergone for product perfection, innovation, and creativity. I can't help but appreciate the effort undertaken when the human mind can accentuate America's changing curvature, speed, and precision in the conception of a car.

And these are the machines moving us at the speed of animation. Awesome.

"This isn't two people, you know, talking about mayonnaise in a kitchen."

philosophy excerpt - a design argument for God

As I drive with my friends to Kansas City for our annual trip to Worlds Of Fun (this time, during fall break), having sarcastic arguments with underlying themes about what it means to exist (which is how I interpret them), I ponder the reason for our existence, sitting in this van, talking and laughing with one another. What are we doing here, and, of all the billions of causes for our existence here and now, there was one first cause.

It still scares me, like it did when I was a little girl, when I think about something causing these causes and how this something never had a cause. This something is God. It’s like I’m looking down a restricted line through a very narrow point of view. I look out at the trees that point up to the sky which holds the stars which extend out into the universe, however vast and large, and at the end or the beginning (or both) or encasing the entire unimaginable vast area of the universe is this strangely frightening causer, God.

I look at my friends, and first, I wonder if they think the same thing. We’re contingent beings, dependent on another. Last night, I spend time with the same friends. We were sad together because we missed our friends who have already graduated and/or have already started student teaching, taking on internships, and finding jobs. At this point in time, we are dependent on each other for fun and happiness, confidentiality, and a sense of belonging. If we were necessary beings, why would we feel this way, not as Christians, but as mere human beings?

There is a pattern, not just among Christian communities but also at the lunch table in a high school cafeteria, in the workplace, in college. We look for those in which we can see something of ourselves, so we’re not entirely dependent on our beliefs (and doubts) about existence from an ultimate creator, or an ultimate creation (the big bang theory) that eventually led to our short so-called life on earth. I even venture into the city once in a while and observe groups of friends heading to the bar, school children playing together on the playground, elderly couples walking into bingo night together. Humans are dependent on one another. This brings back a point I made in earlier writings: “How do you define yourself without comparison to others?”

I will argue that it does not matter if you’re Christian…atheist, agnostic; there is an undeniable value put upon other beings of similar substance. If you’re a “people-person,” sure it’s obvious, but even if one is a serial killer, there is some kind of significance from the human being that makes he or she worthy or unworthy of living. In other words, humans have an effect on other humans, good or bad, in the moral sense. Therefore, the value put upon existence is something of a higher power that exceeds human thought and rationality.

We just listened to a song on the radio by the Black Eyes Peas entitled, "Where Is The Love?" The final line of the song goes like this: "Father, father, father help us, we need some guidance from above." The song illustrates the need for something to look up to, to explain our existence, and to explain our existence for each other. It doesn't necessarily come from "above," but from the foundation of all causes: the first cause.

Typography

"A book is a flexible mirror of the mind and the body. Its overall size and proportions, the color and texture of the paper, the sound it makes as the pages turn, and the smell of the paper, adhesive and ink, all blend with the size and form and placement of the type to reveal a little about the world in which it was made. If the book appears to be only a paper machine, produced at their own convenience by other machines, only machines will want to read it."

I want to be a typographer. I know it sounds funny. What's so great about words and numbers and symbols? They're alive to me, what makes language speak. I want to study letters, get to know them, spend time with them. And sometimes, they keep you from getting lonely (like they are at this moment - when everyone else is asleep, and the chatter of the day is gone.) If you look at a letter by itself for long enough, you'll start to see the shape, the individuality, the message it communicates with the unique curvature of it's lines and the curls (called serifs in the typography world). The open freedom of the "i" that stands alone; the solidarity of the "o;" the grace of the "f;" the power of the comma. If only I could share this with someone who would understand how much value the small things can have. These little guys don't always get the recognition they deserve, and I want to give it to them. :)

Dancing in the minefields

I've heard all kinds of songs about love, many cliche, fake. Let's talk about love and being together forever, skipping through the meadows in the bright sunlight...and how many times I get to hug and kiss you whenever I want and how much fun we'll have. But let's get real. Fun isn't the word I want to use. It reminds me of "for fun" and love is serious. I mean, don't get me wrong. I have fun and it's fun to have fun with someone you love. :) What I mean when I say serious is...let's find what we seriously believe love to be. Let's seriously take a look at what it means to be, to love, to live in love with someone else. Now see, I may have no idea what I'm talking about since I have been and am currently a singular being. No plural efforts or expected forthcomings as of yet, but I believe I've seen it, not in it's perfect form, but in it's earthly form as a gift from God: not perfect, but of God. So, I'll say then, on that special day, let's dance through the minefields, sail in the storms, make terrible decisions, dodge the mines all the while consumed by the love of God inside of us that we give to one another..."we bear the light of the Son of Man."

Light

"God created a most wonderful world to live in, if we could only see and enjoy. No two times of the day are ever alike, no two days, no two years. A most wonderful arrangement, yet, how boring it becomes to most of us. We do not see, we merely identify objects. This is a tree, there is another, they are all alike. Once we begin to see, we will live in a world which is ever fresh and new."
-Reinhold Marxhausen

"To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist."

-Robert A. Schumann

Badenova Stimmen Trailer from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.