I require large blocks of uninterrupted time. I've learned this over and over agin. I forget it. Then I learn it again. It's a fact of my persona, my psyche, internalize it, dear darling.
Things need to shift.
I was taking my mother out on some errands today in town. She was reflecting about her early childhood, more specifically, that lately she was remembering earlier and earlier memories. She mentioned that she felt that she grew up in the best era, being born in the mid-twenties, growing up with the advent of the car, the telephone, refrigeration, all kinds of life changing inventions and so on. It was "the best time to live" according to her. Because that's mom and she sees the world from her perspective only. Anyway, she asked if I wondered and imagined what kinds of sea changes would I be seeing in my lifetime? Now putting aside the fact that I'm in my mid-fifties and I've already "grown up" and am kinda coasting on the downhill side (bless her heart, she's utterly clueless about me sometimes), I did mention the internet and wireless communications. What would that mean, she wondered, what that would mean for humanity? I said that I felt that basic human behavior is pretty constant and in my opinion, any one invention has a period of time that follows where people adjust to the new technology until they get back into their basic rhythm. People want to imagine that things change to be either all apocalyptic or all utopian and neither is true as far as I'm concerned.
It got me to thinking about my adjustment to the phenom of "social media." BACK IN THE DAY, when the internet was wee and I was communicating via bulletin boards and text only, I was still in the throes of what I call "long thought," the ability to think through an idea, let it gestate, not hurried, evolve, sit, come back to it a few days later, explore, and so on. But now, there's been a rush since then, a social media explosion, that I feel we're still in the beginnings of, that's akin to a rapid infection, or a flush of growth, a spreading of spores, etc. So "long thought" has taken a back seat to "short thought", the Twitter/Facebook post effect. People's lives, people's daily communication, has been cut into short bursts, short meaningless bursts, barroom one-liners. Facebook has become the Keurig cup of human thought, short, empty, disposable commentary that has a shelf-life of however long it takes you to scroll past it, filling up the landfill of daily human experience with meaningless, plastic trash. I can read and read and click and click and there's always another link, another thread, another photo, where I can "go deeper" into the story, idea, phenomena but... not really. These days it seems the links loop back on themselves or back to the same five sources, the same six conspiracy sites, the same circular logic, and you learn nothing. And days later, weeks later, the cycle repeats. All hail the algorithm, the magical math that stunts organic growth. Entropy, entropy, oxygen starved entropy. No surprises, just a tightening spiral.
Ok, so obviously that's my take on it and just my opinion. I shouldn't even need to state that but it seems necessary. Having said that, the Keurig cup-ization of my thoughts and work and writing and public discourse or interaction with people increasingly has made me uncomfortable. I'm interrupted regularly with flashes, tenuous neuron-firings of time perception changes. Short thought has begotten perception of time passing much more quickly than it really is. I think. Subsequently, I've begun to measure my "success," productivity, satisfaction with daily living, based on how many different things have I crammed into one day. Why? Why when I distinctly recall pleasurable moments and activities related to long thought? You know, things like getting lost in one's work, a day long hike, reading a good book, a paper book, full concerts, movies, sunsets, blocks of time without the anxiety that I've wasted it. With the advent of short thought social media, taking time to do long thought things comes with feelings that time is being wasted. At least for me.
Time for things to shift. For me. If banging your head on the wall hurts, stop doing it. Facebook has become a tightening spiral. I ignore this blog to do what? Waste time hitting the "Like" button? The Tea Horse Studio page is now a method for Facebook to extract money out of me and force people to look at "sponsored" posts of my work. Flooding the social media waves with posting after posting is nonsense to me so I'm embarking on more direct, less amphetamine-like communication. I've decided to slowly build a mailing list for the studio ( http://eepurl.com/KHZ3L) and publish a newsletter for Tea Horse Studio and Pottery to announce kiln openings, local sales and galleries, discounts and so on, to revisit long thought via this blog, to post images via Instagram(@teahorsestudioky), to get rid of the Twitter account, and just fucking relax a little.
Oh my god the eye twitch just fucking stop already.
Here are some of my latest pots to be distributed locally in the Irvine/Lexington, Ky area first and then onto Etsy.
