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Once God was the only thing that could make you what you are, a king or a popper dictated by destiny.
Today, “we” make presidents and psychoanalysts, CEOs and flunkies, pop stars and criminals through active engagement and consensus belief—even the hermit voyeur, once an outcast can be tracked to cast a vote.
We are in an age not of appreciation but of participation.
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Postmodern art (or post-postmodern art) requires the study necessary to perceive the connections providing serious, full discourse with the art. The continuity possible through ideas becomes drastically reduced when art moves away from ideology, critique, or examination into appreciation or feeling: experience without intellect.
This is a symptom of capitalism markets re-creating art in its own image: a reductive, bright, and easily consumable flavor.
This is not the diverse, relativistic appreciation promised in Postmodernism but an emotive similarity felt by all equally(more akin to universal modernism). More confoundingly, post-postmodernism must return to modernism to address postmodernism’s inability to find a way through the deadlocks and antagonisms that were never solved.
Suppose an audience (and the artists!) are unaware of enlightenment or modernist values, much less the critiques of Adorno or Benjamin that move us into postmodernism. In that case, we are left with art objects of shallow discourse reliant on emotive and consumable appeal. Comfort and indulgence become our guide, a superficial appreciation untarnished by complex insights.
idea from Julian de Medeiros
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We often find ourselves lost in thoughts, ruminating on the past or imagining future possibilities.
Despite this, I recognize that, in this moment, life is good.
Practicing gratitude anchors us in the present, highlighting our current blessings. This mindful awareness (focus) draws us away from the precipice of anxiety and striving, relentless pursuit to re-encounter reality, where most often things are just fine.
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We often dislike the creators of cultural artifacts we enjoy, such as disdaining hippies or baristas while appreciating the Beatles or a well-made espresso.
This contradiction can provoke an openness that can change biases.
The gap between the distasteful interactions and tasteful consumption, harbors compelling evidence that we are socially conservative and desiringly decadent.
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At some point (in life’s journey), our inertia diminishes. At this apogee/apex/peak, we start to slide down, captured by the physics of time.
How we handle it is a difference between tumbling downhill like a stone or skiing.
Both will lead you to the same place, yet one is done with skillful control, while the other is painful to observe and takes out anything in proximity.
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We have notions about who we are and what we would like to be.
To become requires being adamant and being championed by others around you.
You must constantly remind yourself (who you want to be) and be grateful that others allow your being, that is your agency to produce yourself in the way you wish.
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There must be a word for when you lie and exaggerate in a humble fashion to make others feel better about being around you. It is placatory to a level of derangement.
It isn’t a humble brag but a "double humble" of negative denigration; the politeness cancels out politeness and shifts into pathos.
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Our desire to share pain as a bonding experience is baffling.
Our communal agreement in the awfulness is itself awful.
And yet I am grateful for people who will let me explain my pain; for those who will commiserate and agree.
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On your deathbed, you will be grateful for those with you.
But why wait?
Today may be your last, and you can decide to be grateful now for those with you.
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Everything I complain about now, I wished to have at some point. The maintenance of all my fulfilled desires is a tiresome chore.
Yet, if I wish away my responsibilities and toys, that dream too will be granted.
More appropriately, I should remember to be thankful rather than spiteful.
