Catching up: A Log of Sorts

Rather than blogging consistently, I've been jotting down notes in my sktechbook about things I'd love to muse on and blog about if I got around to doing it.

Obviously I haven't.

But this blog serves as my history, as a record of what I think about, not just what I do, so I feel a little bit of pressure to record these thoughts and archive them digitally. Why do I feel this pressure? I've a freak. I guess. Also, since this blog will also serve as a tool for posterity, I want it to be known that even though I'll become old and mindless, I once had a mind. An active mind.

So here is the list and some abbreviated musings:

1.6.10
What is an abundant life? What does it mean to have an abundance? What makes life full? When I think about this I immediately think of the people who fill me. Fill me with love, with spirit, with experience, with joy, with laughter, with heartache. But much of what I associated with abundance is directly tied to those I love.

1.12.10
Thomas Kinkade is a fraud! He claims to be up there with Picasso. IS HE OUT OF HIS SKULL?!! I guess it all depends on what your definition of art is. What is art? What is real art? I think, sure, you can call a Kinkade art, but only in a formal sense. It's paint. On canvas (which is then digitally reproduced, commodified, cheapened, turned into lamps and coffee table books, and now turned into a subdivision).

He makes me cringe. His art is not about ideas, it's not about filling someone, helping them discover an abundant life. It is about fantasy and making lots of money on his "original reproductions" (what kind of art-sucking ignorant oxy-moron is that?) which are printed on canvas and then highlighted by a bunch of factory workers with paint brushes.

Thomas Kinkade is a fraud. He's shoving fast-food art down America's throat so that are too full to enjoy real, filling experience with fine art.

1.25.10
The importance of an education. I never realized before to day how rare it is and how lucky I am to have all four of my grandparents with college degrees. Not only that, I'm married to someone who also shares that blessing. What sort of legacy have I been given? What sort of legacy does that compel me to create?

Thoughts on education and the divorce gap/marriages in my family.

2.8.10
Mikey and I were reading the family handbook of the church and we got into a discussion about gender roles. I was a little bothered because the men's were outlined in detail, and several pages long. The women's consisted of a few paragraphs. Maybe women are just more intuitive about what our roles are. Maybe we have so many that it isn't possible to define them all (accountant, nurse, teacher, cook, cleaner, laundress, chauffeur/taxi, groomer, stylist, decorator, designer, mother, companion . . . )

This lead to Mikey explaining to me how the more our (his and mine) souls commune, the more clearly his soul can commune with God. It made me think about progress and how interconnected men and women are in our goals and progression.

3.17.10
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not at odds with feminism nor does it preach male domination. It has never preferred nor does it have use for women who are weak, lesser-than or unimportant.
(I have been writing up my thoughts on this sporadically, a longer post is soon to follow)

3.30.10
We are alienated from so much of our lives: how our food is made, how our clothes are made, the production of everything we consume really. It makes me feel a need to learn to be more self-sufficient, to reconnect myself with the work and the money that goes into meeting my needs (many of these such "needs" are, I'm sure, fabricated and have come from an inflated need as a result of living in an affluent society).

True fulfillment comes through work. There just isn't another way to it. Imitations of fulfillment cheapen the experience which is often spiritual. We were made to work. There is so much trying to bounce around trying to "fulfill" ourselves without lifting a finger.

Could it be that we have so many choices that people are unhappy with where they are at, thinking that maybe if I had chosen something "better" I would be happier? Do people get out because they see what they are supposedly "missing" out on that is bringing others "happiness?"

4.5.10
 What is the difference between light minded and light hearted? What is the difference between somber and sober?
 
4.12.10
Nature doesn't need us, but we need nature.

4.27.10
British Literature and post-colonialism. Why is it that African schools, in a post-colonial society, are still being force-fed British literature first? Why is it that we, as Americans, are still taught British literature first in school? (More on this later, to be sure).