Why does sparsity of creativity come with age?

• Commitments such as work? Family?
• Alcoholism?
• Lethargy?
• Lack of inspiration?
• Cynicism?

I have no family, or so I like to tell myself. Perhaps I’d count Victor as family if I had to name people. Maybe Tony. Certainly Christopher. Why are they all from Texas? I left that place wanting to rid myself of anchors and the energy sucking apparati of familiarity. I have gone on to be less than fastidious to any new anchor which happened along. Did lack of family, or my perception of lack of family hurtle me into a seething world of would be families brandishing fish hooks with nubile wenches impaled on them as bait?

There is not much to say about alcoholism.

Lethargy is a bitch. It is, partially, all of the above, or a symptom of them. It riddles the marrow of my bones. It atrophies my muscles and even more so my muted neurons. Conquering it would be climbing to the peak of the unclimbable. It’s better just to skirt the base, eh?

Inspiration exists in every blue sign I see through the window in passing marking another settlement. There is no excuse but the previous point as to lack of inspiration.

The creature which wore this skin in 1999 was also a cynical fool. But, as I said, he was not as jaded as he thought he was. When I look back on this in 12 years and write I am reminded of in whatever form of journal I might be using then, I need to say to myself that I was much less cynical and jaded in 2011 than I am now.

I am reminded of. Those are the words I began many a journal entry with. I am reminded of the journal entries which I began with I am reminded of, especially in April of 1999. You see, I am on a train now, much as I was then. My direction is the same as it was then. My destination is different, however.

I shall pass through Usti Nad Labem, but not stop. Dresden will occupy a few hours later in the day.

The resurgence of communication with Hela has awakened a wash of memories from that age. I’d visit sometimes twice a week. We’d sit in her over-furnished flat and listen to music, eat soup and drink Fernet. Well, I was probably the only of us who drank Fernet. I suppose she chose wine. I am reminded of the fact that I’d spice her soup with some chili paste or another to increase its sharpness to a level of my liking.

On the ride to Usti, I’d pen in my hand-written journal (that Victor now has) I am reminded of, but I cannot think now what the things were that I was reminded of. Surely the turning of wheels beneath me did not remind me of much. I had been in the Czech Republic for less than a year. The only wheels which had carried me before the intermittent trains were the rubbery and bland tyres of my Subaru. They were wholly unlike the wheels of a train.

Yet, it was the movement that always fascinated me.

Picturesque landscape pans by and I write. Or I would write. Or, better, I did write. But I did not usually capture the images from the window in my writing, but instead images directly from the emotional chaos of my mind. Those are the workings of true drama, I could say, but I’d rather like to think they were babbling melodrama. I don’t necessarily fault my writing from that time, just my instability both mentally and lifestylistically.

The subject of this entry has a banal double meaning. I was a different age in 1999, for sure, but it was also a different age of my life. By age, I mean a very different person wore this skin. I criticized myself with melodrama last paragraph, but the creature who wears the same skin now is nostalgic for that simpleton who thought of himself as such a complex entity. I admire his spontaneity, his rash decision making process, and his naivete. I admire that he was far less jaded than he thought he was.

I admire that he was unattached.

But he looked for attachment at every bend of his twisty, melodramatic road. He sought it! He wanted it. Of course, he eventually got it many times and look where it has left him. Well, HIM. It has left him mostly dead with another inside his skin, afraid of constant change which used to stimulating him beyond measure.

Christopher wrote:

It will be nice for you to spend the time there, I imagine. Do you associate with anyone else while you are there? I find myself quite isolated here, which is a drag. I have Anne of course, which is great…I would be lost without her, but it would be good to have others I can relate to. My coworkers are aliens to me. Or I suppose I am the alien…

He’s speaking of my time in Nova Scotia, of course. Had I been there alone, I surely would have associated with others more. I find myself in a bubble when somewhere with a mate. Not a friend, but a mate. I can otherwise be very outgoing, and as Loyal used to say, extroverted. I am interested in others and their outlooks.

The only one I communicated with regularly (besides Henderson and Gretel) with was Hope. She is insightful, compassionate and far too trusting. This negative aspect of her personality goes with the territory, I suppose.

And now, in Prague, I contrast my time now in this city with my time ten years prior (approximately) in the same city. I was swamped with relations. I recall that every evening was booked with a different friend, a different experience, and a new discovery. I was doused in bliss. Now, it is all isolation. Renata is the only person I have plans with (lunch tomorrow). I saw Hynek once last week.

I realize this is a sorry state of existence, approaching, slowly, vacuum-like.

We walked two nights ago around the Praha 13 community center and I longed to join the small throng there in the small acoustic concert they were attending. A wall stood between myself and the experience, however. I couldn’t tear down this wall without ripping out one lung of my current life.

A can say the same about the Smaller One as Christopher says about Anne, and I wonder that the fact that we feel we’d be lost without them is actually a part of the wall which holds us away and aloof from the rest of our surroundings.

Who needs them, really?

I wrote to Christopher:

I always hear talk and read words about accepting others for who they are, and I’m all for it, but how about also accepting yourself for who you are?

I was raised in an environment where I was guilty until proven innocent. Not just my parents treated me this way, but every authority figure in the whole decrepit town. If any one of them spoke out against me, even in my minute youth, my parents took their word over mine. I learned to expect it to be this way and, instead, learned to be a very good liar. I could not help being who I was and I really did not want to change, so I could not afford to tell the truth about the way I went about life. I’m not saying that I trolled around robbing shops and setting things on fire, but that I was, for lack of a better word, out.

My mother uttered words yesterday which offended me deeply. I thought I had moved beyond such adolescent stabs of pain, but seemingly, I have not. She exemplified the first sentence in the previous paragraph. My throat tightened as I heard her speak of my lethargy and uselessness behind my back. The door to my bedroom was open. She did not know I heard at the time. Perhaps I would have taken it in stride and actually gone into a bit of self analysis had her words struck some vein of truth. However, her accusations were quite off the mark. I was busy with my little intellectual projects (possibly of no import to her idea of work, but that is beside the point), thoroughly enjoying myself with the initial pursuit of Scala and deciding whether to advance my knowledge of it (and probably reconnect with my Java past in the process), when she barked her scurrilous words. My throat tightened. I colud no longer concentrate. I barked back at her, much like an angered puppy. I was hot around the collar. She was pulling on my leash. Truthfully, it was an awful feeling which brought me back to my childhood and adolescence and my fear of being myself.

Now, shouldn’t we be able to accept ourselves for who we are? Who are others to tell us what we should or should not be? Really?

But isn’t that what fundamentalism is all about?

Yes, that is certainly true, BUT, it need not be the norm. I flee from it. No - not in fear, but because it is not a productive force in my life. I want nothing to do with it. Perhaps flee is the wrong word. Yah. I expunge it.

I refused to speak to her for the remains of the day. It was adolescent and immature a solution to an extreme, but I stuck with it. Today I act normally towards her. Whether it taught her a lesson or not remains to be seen. I would guess no, and it does not matter. It made me think of many things.

First: I had to exercise a great amount of control to not go through the motions. What I mean is this: My habitual comments and reactions threatened to burst forth during many moments. I had to hold them. I had to control myself. I believe I put myself in a situation, however negative in one respect, which taught me a bit of self control. And, more importantly, it taught me that I need to watch my daily routines and habits. I need to reign them in. I need to be in control. Not them.

Second: The whole scene reminded me of Sylvia and Gustav in the book The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. Decades before the story takes place, they had made a decision to never speak to each other. Instead of even simple discourse when they were proximous, they’d converse through whomevever else was with them. Usually this meant Sylvia’s child, Boris. Even after half a day of retaining silence with my mother yesterday, I understood how difficult it might be to break it again as time sheds weighty dust onto it. After weeks, months, years, it would not be the silence which was uncomfortable, but the thought of speaking to her again. It would become the routine, the habit which is simply too hard to break. Inertia would impel it.

I write to Christopher:

What was the impetus for wanting to return to Antarctica? Was it only the loss of the new job opportunity or something deeper? I know that both of us have and always have had inside a turbulence which ia never exactly quiet, but always fidgets at different intensities. I know that in my case it never allows me to be COMPLETELY happy when in a “stable” situation, though a high percentage of satisfaction or contentment in daily life quashes it to an extent. How is it for you? Of course, you have responsibilities now which were absent in our wilder years, but I’m sure the uneasiness still lives somewhere inside you. Such fundamental aspects of personality never completely cease to be.

It appears that Christopher will no longer go to Antarctica. It was up in the air in the first place, for sure, but it is now certain. I asked him a few days ago during a chat whether Anne’s reason for wanting him to stay was selfish or practical. He answered that it was both, but much more of the latter. I can see that. The strain on Anne and Sylvia would be great without Christopher there. Of course, Sylvia would not understand it rationally, but would feel the temporary loss of parentage most likely deeply. Perhaps even an unconscious resentment would spring from Christopher’s absence. I’ve heard of such things happening, though perhaps only in fiction and I am extrapolating.

I do know that Christopher and I are similar enough that we are both dissatisfied to an extent when we are in stable situations for an extended time. Our minds feed on change. They feed on stimuli. There is a sidebar in one of my favourite books about how cubicles kill brain cells. If you are stuck in a drab cubicle, no matter your profession, you will grow fewer new neurons. The brain needs a rich environment full of myriad stimuli for it to flourish. Now, Christopher is stuck in a job which he claims he despises. He despises not the work, however, but the environment. But it is the environment which prevents the brain from flourishing. Listening to challenging music at work is one thing he does to compensate.

I am in Seminole visiting my parents. The contrast from Nova Scotia is great. The stimuli has decreased a hundredfold. Whereas, there I could just walk outside to multitudinous perceptions all attacking me, here I must search desperately every moment for new ones. I had to filter out so many things in Seaforth that I received only a fraction of available input. I wish it to be so wherever I am. My parents love Seminole (and West Texas, in general) because it is quiet. That quiescence is more damaging than tranquil, in my opinion. It incites restlessness.

The paragraph I wrote to Christopher reminds bluntly of our rootlessness. It is a feature (bane?) we share. It contrasts sharply with Tony’s rooted existence in Austin. Whether Tony is happy or not there (perhaps content is a better adjective) doesn’t change the state of his inner stability. Of course, I cannot see exactly what is in Tony’s feelings at all moments, but this is my guess. Inwards, I am always in flux. I must change my inner and outer environment often to achieve this contentment. Or, if you will, happiness.

I’m sitting on a couch in Seaforth, Nova Scotia. The back porch is divided from the house by sliding door and sliding screen. The mosquitos and wasps would otherwise invade and bite. Well, they would not bite me, but the smaller one.

It is the third full day of the vacation. All is calm. All is tranquil. Yet, there seems little time to do the things I want to do, such as write. I feel hurried when I shouldn’t at all.

The jet lag, a factor I never consider, has drug me down for days now. I suspect its bane shall be lifted soon - hopefully today.

Praha is as far away as the horizon, and even further. The horizon is perpendicular to my glance which drifts the length of the siding door, from the wooden floor of the porch to the semi-distant house which sits along the winding, dirt road leading from this house to the main road. Above the house is the stretch of the bay and endless flat of ocean beyond. The horizon is its end. Somewhere beyond it is Praha.

Seaforth contrasts Praha. Here there is silence and the perpetual, if faint, smell of salt. There is the bustle and must of the city.

Just around the corner is Hope for Wildlife. Gretel, cantankerous, awaits. I have already sustained an injury from her. I gaze at it momentarily. Two small gashes sit on the crest of the knuckle of my right thumb. Her teeth made them.

Henderson also awaits. He lopes not unlike a bear and seems to contemplate everything around him bemused. Hope may not be able to free him. His year stay in captivity has somewhat tamed and surely blunted his wild instincts, though he is most likely still a slight danger to humans. He bit me lightly on the first full day. He wanted my backpack yesterday - badly.

We are herded like cattle within a small space. The space leaves us nothing but the feeling of being caged. There is no place to plug the laptop nor the phone in. Nothing. It has been planned this way. The herd is what is expected once you enter America. The difference is extreme.

Why is this?

Why is this?

My parents, the ever worms, are fed this day to day, though they secrete a bit of rebellion in their farm. And the oil. Where is the oil, actually?

We shall see.

I am a claustrophobic person. Enclosure is desolation to me. I feel it now. And the herd. The mentality. I cannot live this way.

He might burn out the divinity generator, and then, where would they be? I have not really got the brilliance of this album until just now. Yeah, I know that Blegvad is a wordsmith and Partridge a (as well as a wordsmith) soundscapesmith.

The foothills of Hell.

I recall when I was listening to this in Zabehlice when Justin was around, visiting, or whatever he called it (yes, I am bitter). He listened for a moment (or perhaps I only regarded it as a moment - I don’t know), and declared - “Some guy reciting poetry. Why do you like this? And bad poetry, at that.”

How wrong he is. But, I mean, of course, in my opinion.

I find it disturbing and a bit sad that in every relationship I have, I feel like I must take only what is of utmost importance. This is a historical artifact, for sure. When Marcie first destroyed all of my possessions still in her presence, something broke inside of me. Of course, she may have had just cause for this, but, again, this is something in my mind, a paranoia which springs from deep within the fertile peat of childhood when I was taught that I was to blame for everything.

• Simply
• Everything

So, when I leave Praha, I look at my possessions and the first thing that crosses my mind is whether I’ll ever see them again. It is a disease vomited up from my past.

And I am, too, at fault. I have always been a nomad. Christian would laugh if he read these words: It is in my blood. What an awful cliche. Whatever I leave behind is gone. I believe that is the point.

Whatever I leave behind is gone.

And if some of it turns up later, it is a happy surprise. To view life in this fashion, I have already carved out a hollow in an asteroid floating randomly through uncharted space.

I do not think I have ever listened to this album before, though it has come up often in forums I have read, and even perhaps in one or two conversations. The title is to the point: I Advance Masked. It is, as some may know, by Robert Fripp and Andy Summers, and I am not sure why it is on the hard drive at the moment. It was staring at me from the top part of the Amarok artist listing, sandwiched between Alvin Curran and Bearded Seals. I stared back, so it is now the soundtrack of these words.

I am in the BRIDGE Bar - Eating House in Terminal Three of London Heathrow Aeroport after discovering that they take Euros (17 of which occupied my walled). It is a pleasant enough place and the intertwining guitars block out the dull roar of its ambient noise. I am en-route from Praha to Boston. The final destination is Seaforth. The contrast in level of tranquility will most likely be astonishing.

My original intention was to work on music. Specifically Cycle Parts VI and VII. That will not happen, however, because I do not have Lilypond installed on Mustela-Ermina. Why I neglected this when installing Ardour and the like to pursue my first musicking outings after the reinstallation of the operating system (with Arch Linux) is beyond the feeble computing power of my mind at the moment. (It must be either the lack of sleep or dearth of neural activity in general which has plagued me over the past weeks to blame.)

I suppose I could sketch the idea which is in my mind and in doing so perhaps fill it out a bit more.

Cycle left us at the end of a meandering path which could seemingly wane and wane into a pasture, growing fainter and fainter as it wound further. Part V ends ambiguously, stumbling in 3/4 time, punctured with syncopated bassoon. (It’s not really a bassoon, you know.) Originally, I intended to bring Part II crashing back in with a sort of dissonant majesty. I no longer feel this way. I like the meandering path analogy. It fades.

Part VI shares structure with Part II. It is based on a foundation of three notes: F E Ees. In Part II, the progression added the E again at the end, creating an edginess underpinning a majestic melody. I want the melody to be more subdued this time.

In the spirit of things, I’ll reverse that progression this time, beginning with E. I’ll just check if that’ll work with the end of Part V. One moment, please, whilst I check the sheet music.

Part V ends on an E, with a d e hanging above and gis a beginning the final measure. Then Part VI begins by resting on E, though switching back to our familiar F major. I play with my favourite modal scale here, the A phrygian. First, after this pedal point is established (which will not change as often as in Part II), an ostinato begins. It toys especially with the bes, which is the second of the phrygian scale. Another important point is the ambiguity between F major and Bes major (again). The ostinato, especially when the pedal point shifts to Ees, feels like A locrean. This ostinato repeats for the whole of Part VI. No. Parts of it drop out (the higher registers) to make way for the melody (the same which is in Part II), which subtly blends with it. An intesnifying factor will be the mellotron which builds dissonantly as the E Ees E F foundation begins shifting more rapidly.

Then there is Part VII, a reprise of Part I.

I am happy with what is currently in my mind. I must install Lilypond whilst at John’s this evening, however! (Or in the morning…. oh, meandering mind).