Artist Dilemma

Art has always been an important form of self-expression for me. I am mostly talented when I am deeply depressed or outrageously angry. I feel very inspired to make the best art when I am in a dark place, and my best works are those I made under the influence of hallucination and inner turmoil. I do believe that you gotta be twisted to make real art.
These beliefs are the main reason why I only experimented with traditional art only for a very short time, to soon abandon it for abstract and surreal forms, which enabled me to truly "become free."
For the long time i was a closet artist, I kept giving birth to work with twisted ideas and a strong pessimist influence. I felt my heart truly came out onto the paper/canvas, and I really did not care for anything else but the story my work told. I would start with no idea whatsoever about what the drawing will turn out to be, and I just let shapes form and lead me to complete the work; it was their story, not mine, and I was only the means to tell it.
After I opened up, learned more forms of art, and was encouraged to not only feel like an artist, but express that in public, with all the wonderful inner glow and booste of confidence that provided, I felt pressured to make art that attracted people instead of art that pleased my soul.
Displaying my work to enter exhibitions forced me to selected "themes" for drawings to fit the popular demand. The even bigger pressure was financial; needing to make money out of art. I feel as though I am betraying my art identity, and denying those shapes and ideas the chance to tell their story through me.
This has caused a lack of inspiration and I fell into a non-productive spell and ill humor. It seems as though art is angry at me and wouldn't tell me any stories to put onto my paper. I have no talent without my deformed faces, twisted ideas, and anger towards the world.
This got me thinking, would I ever be able to make a living out of art?

Mourning a Bird

Today I, for the second day ina row, took my baby bird to work so I can feed it on time and keep an eye on it. After the ifed it the first time, it was for some reason agitated and aggressive. I thought it was just upset from the noise and the cab ride. After an hour and as i opened its box to give it the second meal, it was dead..

I am not sure what happened to it. I know that its mom threw it from the nest, but i really believed it had a good chance of survival with me; i fed it, kept it in a punch-holed, padded box that i cleaned twice a day, let it walk around and flip its wings all afternoon, and did not disturb its sleep. What did i do wrong? did i feed it the wrong stuff? did i hurt it? was i not supposed to keep it in the box? I don't know why it had to die like this.

I can't help but feel guilty, and wish I had tried to out it back in the nest with hopes that its mom would take it back. It is very sad because I had just gotten the phone number of a bird specialist from my boss, and I was going to pass by the store after work to get it a nice big cage to stay in until it can be released. I feel so horrible.

I guess i did have paternal/maternal instincts, the problem was only with my ability to be a parent; i failed miserably.

:(

Bird is the Word!

Right after I came home from the dentist's with half of my face totally numb, my gramma asked me to go and fix the gas tube, which had finished in only one week because no one ever checks for leaks (i live on the first floor, and should it one day blow up, the reason half my face would be numb is because it would not exist!) Anyway, as i went to check the tube i found a little bird helplessly trying to fly but kept on falling back onto the ground grabbing the attention of all the neighborhood's stray cats. At that moment i thought that God must have made my gramma ask me to help her out for a reason; I was meant to save the poor little guy.

So I took the crazy thing into the house and consulted the best vet in town- the world wide web!
I could not figure out the bird species, but I got some instructions on how to take care of the baby bird until it can fly on its own. I was really happy at first since i was helping one of God's creatures and following the teachings of Buddha and all the sacred ones. But then i got really tired of having to feed the little thing every other hour and having to clean its poop. I am really disappointed in my paternal/maternal instincts!

I am at work now, and yes, the bird is in its box right on my desk helping me out with filing! I am glad my boss is understanding, but I really hope this bird can grow and fly fast! Afterall, i do not have the patience of the Buddha!

It's about the Trees, you idiot!

The attitude that most employees have towards their employers, regardless of the type of workplace and whether the boss was nice or not, is that employees are always avenging from any boss actions by wasting office resources.

I definately see this where I work. My co-workers really think that since they are underpaid, their revenge can be presented in over-printing and photocopying, as well as wasting water. One of the interns asked me why I use recycled paper, and insisted I should use new paper and cost the organization more. He literally said "why are you saving them paper?" Unfortunately, my boss and I are the only people in the office who believe in sustainability and saving resources. Everyone thinks it is meant to save the organization money, and that we are cheap and they will punish us by using more paper than they need.

I have explained to most of my co-workers that we are accountable to mother nature and its creator before our boss, and that recycling paper is a way to save trees, our source of O2 that is decreasing rapidly. If you do not want to save the trees for the sake of the tree itself, or even for the sake of God, who would hold us accountable for destroying the earth we populate, do it for your own sake! Be selfish and think about wanting to allow your grandchildren and great grandchildren to live longer by providing them with more oxygen. So far, only one has been recycling his paper. It's better than nothing, i guess.

It is not about your boss, stupid, it is about the trees that keep us alive. If you want to "stick it to the man" try to go on a rally or write an opinion peice or start a freakin revolution; figure out who "the man" really is, coz it sure ain't the trees, and evidently, without the trees there will be no "man" and no "you" anyway.

Rainy Season

For the past couple of days, it has been raining in the capital after a long dry winter. The cabie I usually take home from work drove very slowly in the midst of brown rainwater rivers out of fear his car will die in the middle of the street. I put down my Garcia Marquez memoires which I usually read while in the car to avoid watching the streets and whatever is in them, and I just watched what the first day of rain did to everyone. Kids were peeing into the water, playing with floating garbage, and splashing around the water we rarely see. All the men had their clothes wrapped up all the way to their waists, exposing horros no one really wants to see. People were simply joyous because we never really have alot of rain and most people do not have enough water at home for kids to splash around in or for them to put their feet in and feel all fuzzy inside!

As children, my cousins and i would make small boats and have races in my gramma's yard where a huge lake would form after rains. One of my other rain memories is walking the streets in heavy rain with my two best college friends-one of them diseased now- soaked to the bones without a care in the world because all the nast men who would usually harrass us are hiding from the rain.

I guess witnessing all this made me nostalgic and stuff, but the cynic i am, I always think of what is wrong with this seemingly happy time. In reality, people so happy with the rain that will water our plants are not thinking right, because we do not have a proper rainwater system, which means all of this water will only serve as an alternative to taking the trash to the dump. Secondly, if we want to water the plants and all the amazing crops we have, we should first have crops or plants to water. The other sad thing about rainy days is that once we have a rain spell, the low-quality asphalt of the roads (mainly bad because the cost of important materials was pocketed by some big or small government official) is exposed, and after a week of rain, the roads are full of holes and cracks and traffic is even worse than before.

The rain also contributes greatly to the distruction of the old houses of working-class families that are barely standing. I remember reading this in one holy book or another, that rain may sometimes seem like a blessing when it is actually a curse. I am not sure whether to base my decision on the smiles of children swimming in the garbage-filled water, or on the tears of our neighbor looking for more pots for the rain drops pouring from her roof.

I will just read my book next time.