today's times

friday's new york times had the best reviews. leidman's jellyfish, the above flight of the red balloon by hou hsiao-hsien, thando mama's video art flow. today i typed away about bergman's persona and the self's persona. finally picked up my magazines from my old apartment. got caught up on the reads and found the following of interest: cried at the end of elle's profile on michelle williams, supposedly scarlett johansson is set to direct a short film for new york, i love you (american version of paris, je t'aime--hint: watch six in paris from way back when) and a homeless man named jean marc restoux is running for mayor of paris because he thinks he represents poverty and has notoriety. a 1.5 mile walk taking off in four different locations throughout manhattan on sunday that i want to take part in--some nice spring air--that is if i finish everything off for the art festival i'm in tuesday. i've put the design of it all off--why are things achieved only under the pressure of time? a flux of musicians are flowing into the city (from the expected to the obscure), i think i'm going to go see kaki king perform on wednesday. yesterday i heard alix straus speak on her career in writing which i then followed up with my reading of two articles in the observer 1) leibovitz 2) the journalist and novelist, david samuels. all three kept reiterating (what i consider) the turmoil of the media today--how the materiality of text is a dying industry, how the passion of art is being rung dry, how today's era exists in an editor's reality...blah blah blah. it doesn't discourage me but makes me want to shake sense and smarts (!) into society. i just wish everyone was curious or had the wish to be aware. to be thoughtless is unprogressive--i don't care how technically savvy our culture is, things are being done for us and people are requesting that others control their own thoughts. but i still have hope in change--that a touch of thought can touch the lives of another, if only for a moment. and i continue to act instinctively as long as it is driven by my character and find no exception to edit the self i recognize myself to be and respect myself in being. tonight i had a breakthrough. and i roll my eyes at even the sound of such a phrase and the nature of how it evolved. i say breakthrough because it usually happens twice every six months, usually once i have given into illegal substances and as time slows down and the environment reflects a particular change, i begin to pay a different type of attention to the subjects i am around: the content and nature of what they say--and how this speaks towards a certain type of truth. i become so busy being me and staying genuine to this being, that i forget that others do live differently--respond differently--judge by standards--have formulas, practices, rules, constrictions or even guidelines to how one should be and act. and that how i am may not be what they know, see as normal or find to be comfortable--and so i seem to exist differently (and the truth is sometimes two existences just can't exist within the same reality of one's crafted world). trying to package myself for others has not been a reality of mine in so long. for a whole trend of reasons: judgment always, having learned that criticism is inspiration, not wanting to conceal anything that could surprise someone dramatically in the end, my sister convincing me to act instinctively and be true to that character, my actions not being a reflection of someone's advice and then, being loved for the beauty of my day to day faults. i say this because i don't think i am the only one that can or should reap the rewards. i believe anyone that is true to his self can find "an audience" that admires the honesty. i just don't know why anyone is afraid of his self. and i wish one could know another more. are people really so flat that they expect the person to be taken out of the personality and vice versa? whatever happened to one's disposition being endearing? then again, if i do in fact play to any audience, it is not that one. sometimes i feel like my scope is so small, yet my story is so relatable. i'm too drained--wrote all day (supposedly, i am elusive and a recluse that exists in the world of her novel/a world removed from everyone else)--more to say, but as the case will always be: i wrote all day but still my story is not finished. finally turned my phone off--thank goodness--the sound of it always makes me feel guilty. it continues to be interruptions from boyfriends and husbands, none of which are my own. seriously, how could one wonder why i study characters? there is never not material. there is never not a subject one can know better.

There are two ways of living. Either you conceal who you are and get acceptance, or you reveal yourself and risk rejection. I think it's better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you're not. I do want to join the world, but without beveling down my individuality -Sebastian Horsley.