Might makes right

How I love is who I am. It is not right or wrong; it is an ontological certitude and must be judged on this basis. I am not right for everyone, not everyone is right for me.

This is a new kind of thought for me. I thought that if I liked the way someone looked, and I was willing to put in the effort, then I would succeed by force of will.

We are all the raw materials from which others make what they need. I may be only this, or only that, but when I pair with the wrong person, they take the parts of me, change them into the thing that they are bound to have, and then reject the rest. The thing they make is their truth, but a truth only to them, not a reflective general truth that is a spoken reality, but it carries for them all of the facets and gravitas and consequence to them of the real thing.

I need to keep my heart safe. Hang on, the me of two years ago called, said he was going to kick my ass. I don’t mean that in a hermetic, cloistered way. I mean to say that I am the same as everyone. I rush on, ignoring all signs and symbols. I love my ass off, and until last Thursday it never occurred to me that there was a type of person who wouldn’t want that. I make the object of my attention into the single thing in my universe, I want to bask in it, hold it up with wonder. I want to use them to create before me the alpha and the omega.

Turns out that not everyone wants to be that, go figure.

Now, if I were taking apart whomever I found before me, and shaping those parts into an abuser, or Sousaphone player, or a dumbass, then to leave them would feel like the perfect thing to do. No, what I do is harmful only to myself. I use the parts of them and make the other half of me. I persist in this delusion as long as it will last, and then when they go, it tears me apart, because I have put them inside me, in my heart, and the hole they leave is bigger than the space they occupied.

I can’t do that anymore. Not even once more can I do it.

I used to believe that there are simple things and complicated ones. I am beginning to think that the simple ones are either imaginary, or not properly examined. When I said that I felt fine and that nothing has changed, it still did not say exactly what I meant.

There is a world of existence, and there is a subset of that world, it is called Nothing. Contained in this subset, there are things such as zilch, naught, bubkis, nada, zip and nil. It was this subset that had changed.

Now I have a handle on it. The big handle. The one you can see in the distance, but never quite get to. The grand, overarching mother handle at which all the little handles feed. Having a grip on this sucker puts you in charge.

Top of my game.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

I am a fellow who enjoys life. For the last 12 years, I have enjoyed life in my studio. I am a sculptor, and with brief interruptions, I have been living in the squalid environs of this or that warehouse, or garage, or lot. Comfort has always taken a distant second place to utility when choosing where to lay my head.

I recently moved to Philadelphia from Durham, North Carolina. I am going to be 40 years old in a few weeks. Earlier this year I realized that I could retire from the Duke University, where I was on faculty and staff.

This insight made me more than a little uncomfortable, being as I had not really been aware of the passage of time, and was not prepared to have the last job I would ever have.

I decided that there must be time for one last great adventure.

I moved here to be a part of something that is bigger than me. An art foundry. We are making the next big thing.

I also decided that an apartment might also be nice. I have had the chance to visit the homes of others through the years, and I have seen some things that I liked.

I like my place. It is a 1-bedroom place on the second floor. I have 9 windows in 4 rooms. 4 windows in the living room make a nice nook where I like to sit and read, look out at the squirrels, in the trees, in the yard. It is the reason I got this place.

Now, the point of this message. I would like to announce that I am now a proud member of the houseplant owning public.

I hope you will indulge me with a few pictures. They are not for the feint of heart; they are a display of the natural reproductive imperative. You are warned.