It’s funny — you know, not in the ha-ha sense, more in the “isn’t that cute, you think you have ideas and beliefs and you think you matter” kind of way — how ego-driven and kind of atrocious(?) art is*, even more so how analogous it is to, you know, existing.

I remember attending this lecture (okay, it may have just been a meme) where it was stated that an artist maintains simultaneous narcissism and crippling self-doubt. I guess that’s that balance thing I keep hearing people talk about. *shrugs* Maybe it’s that gnawing knowledge in the back of the mind that whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re saying, whatever you’re creating really isn’t that important — ever.**

This probably is starting to sound like I cut myself in the corner of my dimly-lit, noose-bearing, cat-overrun apartment, but it’s not like that. Like, for reals. (Okay, there are cats.)

Over summer term I’ve been enrolled in a geography course so naturally we’re studying the universe. The more I read about my lat-and-longitudinal location on this planet, in this solar system, in this galaxy, in an ever-expanding universe, I just can’t help but take everything less seriously. There’s nothing like dissolving the illusion of day-to-day doings to illuminate what egocentric, pattern-seeking, meaning-projecting creatures we are.

I’ve been having these conversations with folks lately about how nothing really means anything, how there aren’t “signs,” that we just string things together to make sense out of the nonsense — to create value out of nothing. To make the human condition worth enduring.

I don’t think it’s necessary. Personally, embracing the meaninglessness of… all of this has done wonders for my psyche. It’s so much easier to simply let go of things and move along — ever trudging forward: “Cool, that happened. Now I’m going this wayy!”

And it all kind of comes back to art: symbols, in the most expansive definition of the term, are merely placeholders for established value — they shift cross-culturally and invariably intergalactically.*** I could go on about how art’s a dialogue, maan — ever shifting and expanding (like that universe thing), but I’m at work and I should really be scratching my back with a pen. Ta.

Oh, and here’s that link to some nobody’s blog about similar stuff: www.sensesofthesoul.ca/blog/2014/02/27/working-meaninglessness/
*I’m an art major. I’m very important.

**I also pretend to maintain a blog about me. I am, like, totally super important. You can read it here: soandsosays.wordpress.com.

***Yeah, it’s a word now. Why? Because I used it and you can extrapolate meaning from its use. Boom.