I'm not alone

am I ?

Dear Listener,

What is it that you look for in life? What do you listen for? I’m not super sure what I’m after myself. I’ll know it when I walk into it because I like walking. When pressured I might say I seek belonging, recognition or connection. I might even use the word enlightenment but what do those words even mean to me? I think definitions are important variables that are too often overlooked. When recently asked to define belonging I wrote “ the condition of being in place. The sensation of inhabiting a position in a physical, social or cosmic system that is suitable to the nature of the inhabitant”. Sounds fun doesn’t it? Belonging implies a certain degree of conformity, a sameness. All of the knives belong together in the utensil drawer because they’re all knives. My 10 year old child told me about how kids new to her class might show up looking and behaving a certain way but slowly, over time, they adjust themselves to the new environment, become more like others in order to find their place in the class. If we can only function way out in left field then I guess we’re left fielders. Often I’m the quiet guy who’s unsure of his place and people are surprised when they begin to find out how strange I am. I know I’m not the alone it that. Physically I belong swimming in a river, on a board rolling down an asphalt slope or climbing trees with my children. Also browsing in a used book store. Socially I belong in small groups, two or three is pretty nice. I like smaller performances or screenings, I once went to a show where I was the whole audience, I was outnumbered by the musicians and they played for me anyway. Maybe I listened a little closer than usual. Cosmically I belong wandering alone with a camera, noticing things, listening to things. Last summer in the city I came across the following scene concealed among the canyons of downtown. Tell me this isn’t the transformation of ugly into beautiful. My aesthetic specialty. If you listen carefully you can hear the delicate sound of the thin tarp whispering beneath the weight of urban impositions. I watched for maybe forty five minutes and I still made the boat home.

What it is that organisms avoid might safely be summarized as pain. The signal of an adverse stimulus uncomfortable or harmful to the organism. I think we could agree that there are different kinds of pain. Physical pain is pretty easy to come by so it requires little description but mental pain, though connected, has greater variety. The wounding of another person is a painful mental event, if through action or inaction. Not being there and falling in the estimation of someone for whom you especially care. I’m fortunate for the mild share of pain that I’ve had but I’ve made due with it. Social pain has much to do with communication. Although I love words I find communication a potentially painful endeavor, it can be difficult. For example have you ever sent an ill considered, poorly written email or message that you would later regret? After it was too late? Or even worse did you send it to like everyone the recipient knows? Worse still, it wasn’t even funny? You ever do that? I know I’m not alone in this. Anyway, I survived and I’ve survived more wretched personal pains that I’m not gonna tell you about. I think that every so called sapiens has a tale that they’re probably not gonna tell you about. At the same time the sharing of pain can create collective unity, a sense of belonging. Collective pain, the pain of a community, maybe a planetary community is also a powerful force of unity. Maybe that is where it merges with cosmic pain. Maybe the wounds are the results of patriarchal, competitive, social and economic systems that have evolved over many years, accelerating in the last few hundred to dysfunctional extremes. The pain of subjugation, domination and mass murder. That kind of pain? It exceeds me personally, but I feel it personally. You know? It can be painful to belong to such a species. I’m far from alone in that pain, I’m just extremely lucky to get off as easy as I do.

Did you notice the absence of the word happiness in the first paragraph. Don’t people seek happiness anymore or has that worn off or what? Maybe folks are trying to compromise with just some joy between moments of happiness. I have tried the technique with a varying degree of success. There seems to be a great deal of joy to be found in simple connections with fellow sapiens but it isn’t always simple somehow. Also there are joys in solitude for me, I am capable of keeping myself quite amused. I like to say that I can’t be bored but I’m not in a hurry to put that to a serious test. Alone I can feel isolated and I can also feel unisolated. Walking is one of the greatest inventions of all time and I’m happy doing that alone as well as in company. Earlier last spring I was in the city wandering alone, unguarded, and I wanted to visit a cat café because they exist. Sit down for a coffee with a cat. Sounds joyous no? If you like cats I guess, and coffee but they have other drinks too. The cats were all occupied so I go walking in the direction of an old timey photo laboratory where they sell good film. My route takes me through an aged industrial area separated from luxury car dealerships by railway tracks. The old industries were farm implements, a valve company, and neon products, buildings built in the style of the early to mid nineteen twenties. They are full of other things now. At the far end the tracks from me is an old packing facility, I think its storage now. Walking along the tracks I come across discarded articles of clothing and the remains of meals. Homeless city dwellers were congregating here it seems. Further down are the scattered contents of a handbag then the bag itself. I unpack my camera and start recording the passage of my footsteps through the trail of debris. I feel like I’m walking among the lives of objects, each piece wears the story of how in came to this place. There! A spoon lies face down on the concrete, I dolly toward it. A kick sends the spoon flying and singing. I hurry after the utensil, surprising myself with the dexterity of my toes. The instrument bounces along the walkway with sharp notes until I withdraw my attentions. Study the clip below, you are witnessing happiness as clean and crisp as a glacial stream.

Ok, so I like kicking defenseless spoons around, how joyous. I didn’t kick it far and I put it back when I was done. My pleasures are simple I guess, even if they’re not shared pleasures. Although I did just share a couple of them with you. If you try it and encourage your friends to do the same pretty soon there could be a community of spoon kickin freaks. It’s a community prepared to enjoy what they encounter no matter how boring it may at first appear. Community is another word that I encounter frequently now. A sense of togetherness feels an appropriate answer to the forces of division, of individualism. Is individualism bad though? Where does an individual belong in a community? In their place? How many people do you think forms the minimum community of physical proximity? More than two? Three? Three people who live close enough to hear each other snore? The number can rise but they have to live close to each other. Is an apartment tower a community? I guess. Is it more a community if the building is on fire? I guess. Socially a community could be a collection of like minded individuals or even a social class of like minded humans. I was recently at an event taking place at the school near my place. It was called “community connection day” and there were all kinds of neighbors doing things like drawing your face or playing music or, my favorite, hand weaving. I was invited with my friend to be among the different interactive things that people could get into. We are musicians of the experimental variety and we set up in a hallway with our equipment which included various sound objects to be tried, microphones and looping system. I struggle a bit with social interaction so I found it hard to initiate and interact. Although I didn’t really charm them into it we did get a few interested parties. One young fellow took a particular interest in my Daxophone sound box or rather the springs that I’ve attach all over it. He liked to snap one spring loudly and in a regular pattern like once every second. He stopped periodically to remark at how spooky he considered that sound. Also the youngster suggested that the music we were making should be listened to for a period of ten hours. He wondered aloud what might happen to a person who did listen for the ten hours. He doubted that they would be the same.

The fellow in the foreground is my friend Klame. He says he listens better directly through his skull which I think is probably true considering his considerable listening ability. So anyway I think that I might have connected with at least one new person on community connection day. We both like spooky music, both like annoying sounds, we both consider the optimum listening period to be ten hours, he lives close to me, I walk by his place on my way to work everyday. We are certainly members of each others community, I would now recognize and greet him by name if I saw him on the street. Recognize literally means to re-know, I would re-know that kid. I know something of the way that he operates. I would recognize his appearance, but beyond that recognition means knowing something of a persons style. Something that they would do, Behavioral style. I think I have a pretty recognizable style if not always the most socially acceptable or mindful one. I am easily distracted by clothing on a line, sidewalk trash, a sentence of conversation or even a word chosen by someone. It takes very little to pull me out of reality and into my own story about myself, the world or people in it. My behavioral style can suffer as a result of the stories that I concoct about people and things. Recognition also means accountability for poor stylistic decisions. I don’t want to be recognized for bad style or be held accountable for it and I know I’m not alone.

Ever yours

D. Faced