unfinished work

Hey everyone. You probably figured I'd died or fallen off the planet by now—thankfully not, at least certainly not the former, though I have been put quite a bit on the leading edge of life, if you could call of it. Amazingly, this is just "real" life. I thought the 9 to 5 was supposed to be less stressful than the life of a philosopher or artist (or both). That life is pretty stressful too—for instance, you can never stop thinking about painting, writing, or the meaning of life. One of my past girlfriends once said to me: "Daniel, you think too much." I guess I'll have to find someone who won't driven crazy by my incessant thinking, because even at the nine to five, I'm dreaming up new essays, paintings, and thought-strains all the time.

The reason I haven't blogged for about a month now is because I've had neither the energy nor the time to do so. I've been fully consumed by my hectic, though productive, and ultimately fun (I guess) time at Laureate. This isn't your normal summer job. Basically put, I'm creating high-tech (really?) presentations for prospective grad students studying at an online university. I'm part of a team of people who receive audio and basic (I'm being nice here) Powerpoint presentations from PhD's all across the country who are experts in their field. We, but mostly I, transfer the nasty (did I say that? How uncouth of me) Powerpoints into spiffy-looking, design-savvy PDF presentations with a clickable interface. I design 3D graphics, cut audio, and make the PhD's sound a lot better on the internet than they did on tape.

That's not all though. Thankfully this incessant PDF work is tapering out and I'm working on more creative projects now—for instance, designing a logo for the online university's new student-management system, which could be compared to the myMICA portal (for any readers who happen to attend my school). Not only that, but I basically get to design a whole ad campaign for this new system because the upper staff wants the new trainees who will use the system to be excited about it. I get to create everything from banners to cafeteria tabletoppers (and trust me, they won't be your typical tabletopper indeed).

The job requires all, if not almost all, my energy though. One day I spent eleven hours at the office doing work, which bodes well for me because I get paid by the hour (I'm a contractor), but it doesn't bode well for my sleep or my reserves of creative energy. I have around only 3 hours a day for creative free time now. Of course I can't complain to my father, because this is his day day in and day out. And I've really come to respect that, because he would "love to do an album" as he put to me, but can't—and for the same reason I can't continue writing on my novel(s), for example. I've begun to get an idea how much he's sacrificed for the past year or so. And while some people say that they could never work under their father, he and I get along quite well doing it—in fact it's promoted our work relationship and our familial relationship in ways I couldn't have expected.

But I push as hard as I can, and there are good people here. I've dressed my little cubicle with knicknacks and gooballs to amuse the other residents of CubicleLand™, the sign above being one part of my menagerie. And it is quite true—I've not drunken so much coffee in my life as I have now to keep me awake and energetic at work. But there is as much laughter around the office as there is work, and that's just really wonderful.

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On the alternate side of life, however I've been busy in other veins. Too much for me to update regarding in a single post, but I'll pick just one tent-peg that's the most recent event. After putting down John Caputo's Weakness of God book for awhile, I had a short stint where I completely let go of philosophy and theology. I sort of had to cleanse my system.

Well, the system was cleansed, but you can guess what happened next. I started writing again.

I've started another essay. This one's going a lot slower than Eschaton did because of the amount of work I have to deal with, but it's something that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile now. Actually, it originally started here. Somewhere down in there I mention the words "aesthetic memory" in trying to describe how I started writing Summoner and the Pianist.

Well, the idea of aesthetic memory, which is really an encompassing idea that ultimately relates to art and the presence of the artist's consciousness (and how that is fleshed out in art and, probably first in my mind, writing) in reality, stuck with me. It started with that original literary reference in that post, but the term stuck with me, and now it's beginning to grow into its rather overwhelming proportions.

Here's a little sample from the writing I've got so far:

If we are human, we live in a world made of the senses. But perhaps the senses are not sensical in the way that they are rational, intellectual, and structural. Do we build thought-houses with our senses? Are our lives built upon our senses as surely as a house is built upon a foundation? Yes, but it was thought by old philosophers and scientists that the senses were hard tools—hammers and pickaxes—through which we could drill the equally hard, dead walls of reality, and our ignorance of it.

So the philosophers and scientist took their hard labor and sought to build an edifice of our understanding about the universe. But as they threw their picks toward the void, they found their tools disappearing into a warm, wet surface, steamy with the heat of underwater spirits and stormy air. The great project of building a real house for a human organism found itself being built into not the walls of the great cliff of undiscovered reality, but into the womb-like waters of an unearthly tehom. The philosophers and scientists were first aghast that their finely-crafted tools had so easily been sucked into the maw. But as they looked into the deep abyss, they saw the reflections of their own experiences—and the experiences of everyone who came before them—shining and rippling back into their eyes upon the water’s stirring surface. And it was then that both philosopher and scientist became artist.

It's heavy lifting even compared to the In Light of Eschaton essay (which I didn't, or at least have not yet, sent to Caputo), which explains why I've only be able to write a page or two a most on it during the day after work (and usually the number is half that). Still, I feel I lot freer in writing this essay than I did with Eschaton. I'm being a lot more honest with my writing—trying to just let it be what it is and not water it down. The strange thing is, though not unusual for me, that I really don't know what this aesthetic memory thing is. At least not in words. I know what it is in my head, and maybe if you asked me to explain it, I could do a fairly good job, but in writing there are so many things that you have to address—and especially the philosophical implications, maybe, of what this is (I'm still wondering about how close I should get to philosophy—I'm tempted to not label it as anything and just let it be—in fact, my heart leaps at the idea of simply being). Writing it down is me finding out what it is as much as it is me trying to explain it to the reader. And honestly, when I try to explain things, I think I often do a poor job. The best way is to just let it be, and that's been my hardest challenge lately—even spiritually. I've had to cast off a lot of labels, and I'm still doing that. And so, especially with this little baby thought of mine, aesthetic memory, I need to give it fertile soil and not a planter sign, because a sign won't do it much good.

Good advice for one who struggles. But one who wanders—and who is not lost.