“I Might Fear Truth”: June 04, 2010
June 04, 2010
“I Might Fear Truth”
Artist’s Statement
UCOR
I might be a lot of things. I’m just a moment in time. I don’t know how I feel a lot of the time. Should I always be happy? What am I supposed to feel? Is anything right or wrong? Why do I get the worst vibes from some things and other things make me feel safe? Is anything better than anything else? There are too many things going on in my head, and I don’t know what I am doing, or who I am. The artistic representation of myself is meant to express my confusion about life in general, and every question I have ties into whether there is an ultimate right or wrong. What this encompasses is my worry about where I am going and what people expect of me.
I am struggling to find meaning in this world, this chaotic and hostile world where people try to change you into what they want you to be. There is so much corruption, and so many people ready to hurt you. The worst part is that I know I am one of those people. If I had to hurt someone in order to keep myself alive, I probably would, and I hate this. Because of certain instances like this, I cannot figure out what is right and what is wrong. Should one do what is best for himself if it hurts others in the end? Is there a right and wrong? My questions of right and wrong do not end here, at the point of questioning if one should do things for himself above others. It also regards emotions. What should I feel when I am just being me? I know I should not feel self-loathing, but much of my life has been devoted to that, until I started taking anxiety and depression medication. I should not be afraid to talk to people, but I was until Zoloft became a part of my life. I could not even ask someone to help me find something at the grocery store, and I am still socially awkward with everyone I do not know well. Are these things that I feel wrong in some way? Should I always be happy? Should I be “normal?” What is “normal” anyway?
The confusion installed in my mind because of these questions makes it hard for me to find things to do that are meaningful to me. Sometimes I think that everything I am doing is only because I have to. I am only going through the motions, being another clone in a community of meaninglessness. I loathe this feeling, and to make it worse, I do not know what I would rather be doing. I do not know what I want, how I am supposed to feel, where I should go, how my mind is supposed to work. I do not know why I feel like everything in this life has to be meaningful.* Why does meaninglessness terrify me? It is hard to do things when one does not care about them. For instance, soccer this year was awful. I came to SPU because of the soccer program, and after having the worst season of my life I questioned if this is what I want to be doing. I stopped caring about something I’ve been doing my whole life, and started asking myself exactly what I want. I do not want to be participating in an activity just because my parents want me to, or because everyone expects me to. I would feel ashamed just quitting though, and not finishing things I have started. I do not like disappointing people, but if it makes me happier is it right? I do not know.
[*Ana’s 9th house lord conjunct the AC?]
There are things I think about that do not make sense because I am not effective in communicating my ideas to others. My mind works in subtle, confusing ways, as I am sure every person’s mind does. I have created certain scenarios and feelings that are unique to me. I’m really sensitive; I get strong vibes from varying sources. When that source is something I have fabricated from my ideas, opinions, memories, and places, it is usually something that makes me feel good in a way, something I strive to achieve. One of these is a concept I have invented for myself, and I’ve named it “real.” This is an intensely inappropriate name for it because everyone has his own opinion of what real means, and that makes my explanation of my own experience hard to understand. I often associate real with people I admire, or think are really interesting. There are things people do or say that make them real to me. Most often they are different than mainstream society, and are genuine in what they are feeling. Real is definitely not perfect in any way, and because of this imperfection, beauty is created, and I want my being to encompass this mysterious beauty. What I want is to feel like I am “real.” So often I do not feel this way; I feel boring and unimportant and lame. I want to think of myself the way I see people I am in love with. Mostly the people I see as so “real” are in the bands I adore, or movies I enjoy, or books I consume. This last is perhaps the most important, because of its symbolic meaning in my project.
The reason I made a book, and put my existential questions inside that book, is to remind myself that I am the people in the books. The characters I see as real are exactly like me. I am my own concept of “real,” and it has taken me so long to realize this. I think maybe I was too afraid to see this, for unknown reasons. This is why I titled my project “I might fear truth.” I think the answers to all my questions are right in front of my face, and I am just too scared to see them as they are. This is just a theory though; I could be entirely insane. Another reason I made a book holding my questions is because I think someday I would like to write a real book, using the diaries I have kept over the years.* I feel like that would be ultimate liberation from the fear of what people think of me.
[*Triwheel chart follows.]
Since it is hard for me to find meaning, I wanted the project to have a lot of symbolic meaning, because meaningfulness is such an interesting topic. I covered the outside of the book with newspaper clippings from an article in The Stranger about suicide. This is not because I am suicidal, because I am not (and if I was would that be a “wrong” way to be?), but because it seems like a lot of the people I see as “real” ended up killing themselves, or were at least depressed or insane. I think this is so interesting. It seems like one of the qualifications to being great in the public eye is to feel things differently than others. Because of this alternate way of perceiving, these people are able to create things that are so different than what has gone before, and therefore gain fame. This then ties into one of the questions regarding right and wrong I have: is it right to feel terrible if one ends up giving birth to something revolutionary? Is it wrong to be great if one can only be great and unhappy? Another question that comes up when I think about that is this: is anything better than anything else? What I mean is that is it better to be famous and create something intense that makes people question their assumptions, or to be plain and anonymous and not a part of anything? So often I believe it is better to be great and unhappy than boring. This is why I cannot figure out if I should be happy or not. Should I quit the Zoloft because it makes me not who I am? Is the negativity and anxiety just part of who I am? I do not know.
On the newspaper print I circled “I feel” and “I worry,” because those are things I do a lot. The back of the book has the pasted statement, “I have no idea what’s me,” which I perceived as a legitimate sentence of self-expression. The naked mannequins on the front hold no special meaning. I simply thought they were aesthetically pleasing. I guess if I had to make them have meaning I would state that I think the naked human form is beautiful and I think people that find it offensive are offensive.
The inside of the book has the words, “What is the taste of madness?” This question seemed poetic to me, and represents another reoccurring theme in my life: insanity. I cannot figure out what is insane. For awhile I thought I was insane because I felt differently about things than other people did, and that was scary. I have looked up that word in the dictionary, and it remains unexplained. Why do the insane people always end up posing rebellious questions that blow a person’s mind? It makes no sense, but it makes all the sense in the world. The insanity theme ties back into my questions of right and wrong. Is it wrong to be insane, to feel things more deeply, differently? I do not think so, but society so often does.
I have placed dried flowers inside the book, and sprinkled perfume on it. This signifies that everything beautiful dies, that the things I worry about now are ephemeral and pointless, but meaningful because they are real at this moment. The bottom inside has random words pasted on it. They all come from how I view myself, how I could describe myself at any point in time.
What the book holds is a fortune teller, containing my existential questions. The fortune teller represents the simplicity of my childhood, and it is balanced out by the darkness of the things I do not know. Unfold it. One will find a statement that means something important to me. It may mean madness. It may mean liberation. Quite possibly it is both at once. It is something I pretend to have done, and I have not, because I am too scared to. I think it is the truth, which I also may be terrified of discovering.
[There’s that whole thing again, where Ana brings up her diary/book idea…Ana has been working on this Artist’s Statement document for her class for quite awhile at this point, and today is the day she turned it in. My profection lord theory is supported by this chart. Even though Ana didn’t necessarily write this today, I think it’s notable that she turned it in today. You can see Mercury as profection lord is applying to aspect by trine/sextile Ana’s Sun-Chiron opposition, and thus the core axis of her chart. Other than that, not much is different from the previous chart shown, other than the Moon’s placement. Moon is now in Pisces sextile/trine the nodal axis by degree, thus sextiling Ana’s Moon-Uranus-Neptune and also squaring the Sun. Is there anything about the transits here that you find particularly notable with respect to Ana’s existential themes?]