Second Guessing, to Death

Only action effects change.

The contemplative mind yields insight, and the creative will acts accordingly within the parameters of proposed outcomes.  No outcome in any social order is ever permanent, and no total effect within the dynamic of culture is ever fixed and immutable.  To believe otherwise is absurd.

Equally absurd in the context of the human condition are demands for guaranteed outcomes, since these do not exist.  Action based on scientific method, with its associated meticulous refinements, may indeed place the human imprint on distant planets, but no undertaking that is predicated upon absolute foreknowledge of end results is possible in the world of human affairs.

True accomplishment comes from work leading to acceptable conclusions, and these are inspired by belief and confidence in the necessity and wisdom of change in the status quo.  This is the strength of risk, and of faith as well.  Nothing less, and nothing more, is possible.  Choose action.

The Beam in the Mind's Eye

Disaster comes from the failure to question; and so it has been wrought.

Think creatively.  Question self, question culture, question narrative and reality.  Think.

In Decline, Then Rising

Appearances alone are not acceptable.  There must be meaning, and there always is.

One does not allow culture to dictate meaning; neither does one allow it to deny meaning exists.

Mythos

Every artist must speak independently.  I speak for none other than myself.

The progress of art in every form of expression is one of continual revelation.

Exercise VII

See and listen clearly, with self-discipline and simplicity.

Where there is corruption, reject cultural expectations and ideologically conditioned responses.

Vision, Sound, Focal Point

The power of art is shared perception.

Thus the artist cannot allow culture to diminish the arts, beginning with personal, individual work.

Familiar, Yet Alien

No one will deny that current conditions set the stage for future events.

But there are other influences, as yet unknown, that will come to the fore as well.

Actionable Intent

For desired change to come into being, it must be created.

Therefore take action, regardless of scope or scale, and cause will yield effect.

Creative Will

When the artistic impulse balances chaos and order, there is change of a specific nature.

This is change that eliminates and restores, that casts down the superficial and elevates the real.

High Strangeness III

All creative acts engage cause and effect, action and reaction.

Yet some combinations of artistic activity generate peculiar responses that expand past the limits of the expected. The viewer, the listener, and at times, the artist, may be swept up in energies within the psyche that do, in fact, transcend the aesthetic event, and perspectives may be altered in ways that lead to deeper understandings and broader perceptions.

And it should go without saying that the nature of such power is not always understood.

Sphere and Compass

Integrity is the way of nobility.

Thus it is with the artist, if the artist strives for the light, regardless of the endless assaults of the ignorant and benighted.

Echo Sierra Papa

Culture, in the contemporary sense, offers no moments to pause and reflect.

Nonetheless, the failure to give due consideration to reality, history, and experience is great failure indeed; as long as the media, the intellectually mediocre, and a mundane cultural aesthetic offer no more than one benighted perspective after another, the development of the contemplative faculties is not only desirable for the forward-thinking individual, it is essential to human progress beyond the shallows.  Even the very idea of the existence of such faculties, for many, evokes the paranormal.

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos

Any art, visual, musical, or otherwise creative, demands concept and goal.

In process, art also demands flexibility, improvisation, and recognition of total effect.

The Doom That Came to Pop

Give the people what they want.  

Over time, by extension: Everything must be free of effort, freely accessible, and free of cost.

Consequently, without challenge, with no intellectual or emotional investment, its value is defined.

Persistence of Vibration, Optic and Auditory

Perception and experience merge in memory.

One does not set emotion aside for creative purposes, but the even temperament senses more acutely the range of atmospheric variation, color, and sound essential to composition because the experience is broader and deeper than that colored by internal conflict or extremity of personal feeling.  This is the contrast between subjectivity and objective synthesis apparent in both visual and musical works. Consider the differences between Van Gogh and Dürer, or Beethoven and Brian Eno, for clarity through contrast.

Repeat Mode

Static culture replicates the same content continually.

Superficially, this appears to be a massive failure of imagination, but it is not.  Totalitarian culture replicates content with variations to inculcate ideology and agenda.  Ideally, force is not necessary.

Freedom of thought is rendered ineffectual by social influence, history is rewritten, and pressure to conform is continually applied through repetitions of idea and imagery.

Arc, Cycle, Totality

No gain or loss is perpetual.

This is true in cultural and creative terms. Ends and beginnings are not easily recognized, patterns of social behaviors become static or dynamic over time, and every work proceeds from concept to conclusion according to factors both predictable and unexpected.

Ultimately, the foundation of forward-thinking is tradition.

Seasonal

Grasp subtlety by awareness of atmospheres.

There is a correlation between any environment, natural or man-made, and the ways sound rises and falls in such settings over time.  Observation reveals these processes are distinctive, and may be applied to sound compositions and recordings in ways that produce radically different works than those designed to merge genres or focus solely upon classically minimalist stylings.  And clearly, the jarring contrast in aesthetic purpose between my pieces and others considered to be, by specious academic standards, "sound art", is obvious.

In Gratitude

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Exercise VI

Clear the mind, to the greatest extent possible, of subjective thought and emotion.

Concentrate solely upon sensory perception, and sustain this focus. Consciously see, listen, attend to the atmosphere in every way, including the subtleties of scent and temperature, flavor and what may be called undefined experience.  Whenever possible, choose to engage this exercise.

Reflect upon the nature of these events, and, as warranted, make notes for later consideration, particularly as the writing may clarify or elaborate upon the aesthetic and creative perspective.