Interview with myself about the Fragments CD

Part Four - Rebut

Q: I must say your approach to music is somewhat endless, I wonder do you just confuse yourself more than anything in the end?

A: To be honest, at times it is simply that, and motivated to simply do just that — confuse me.

Q: Why? Why not play a certain way or style or whatever and be done with it? Why push it?

A: You are right, really: why not leave it alone? Perhaps the reason I question so many things is because I am presumptuous, perhaps I am simply trying to make something out of myself that isn’t there? The fact is, I am confused, I get confused, and even so I keep going. It occurs to me all that time that I am simply full of shit, even so I keep going. I feel doubt, failure, worthlessness, and even so I keep going; all of this and more; it is all a part of it.

Q: Why is failure apart of it? Doesn’t this create some tragic ideology more than anything?

A: Perhaps it does, it certainly has in my life. But the one returning theme that strikes me when I doubt myself, when I think… you know what, I am never going to amount to anything… is: why is it so important to amount to anything? I don’t think I am an unethical person, I don’t think I am a negative person, in fact - as rational as a person can rationally speak of them selves - I think I am somewhat helpful in life, perhaps even positive.

Q: But isn’t this an escape?

A: Ya, it is, especially in the way that you mean, it is most certainly an escape. I try to escape everyday. There is always something that gets me, depresses me, scares me, hurts me, and I, in whatever way, try to escape it. Now my concept and reasoning is, if I understand more, if I try to open up the things in my life that have held me back, this is a positive thing, more to the point, it is an open positive thing.

Q: But you could be wrong.

A: Absolutely. I could be so wrong that, well, I may never see just how wrong I am.

Q: So what’s the point?

A: As I have said before, each person has a theme, and my theme is to do something that is positive, however this does not mean that I will be able to do this. Perhaps I will play a part in a future understanding, and I don’t mean collectively, on a grandiose scale, rather, personally. Perhaps some one will find something of themselves, something possible within themselves, perhaps I will be able to do that which has been done before me, which I inspire.

Q: Is this really the goal?

A: Well, sure — what ever a goal is. Listen, my underlying premise, the ground upon which I build, is tied to the life I have had and the experiences within said life. There is, I feel, a good thing about me, a positive thing about me. I am poorly education, largely self educated, and this in and of itself is confusing to may people. But even so, there is something that a person can do. I have learned, I have grown, but only because I have challenged myself. The errors I may to some people are egregious, the attitudes I have are obnoxious, the concepts, naive and or sentimental, if not dull minded. But even so, I am still who I am, I can’t stop it, however, I can learn from it. If I am a failure it is because it is my nature and so I embrace it; if I don’t than I’m in real trouble. At the end of it all, all I can do is accept my weakness, my failings, my foolishness, and to a greater extent than that of times now pasted in my life. If I can do this than I have moved, continued, and grown. Most of all, if I can hand a first step, a jumping off point, a reason to start, a reason to continue, or whatever in whatever way, to some one, than I have lived the best life.

Yes, much of what I do is confusing, and I get lost all the time. This used to frustrate me, however I realized that it was largely an apparatus of self defeat, a pathological form of negation, an inability to draw meaning from metaphor and belief. Now if I get lost, I look around, take a breath, hum, look into life, listen to silliness, and wander. I don’t know if this is better, but it is better for me, most importantly I treat the people within my life - the people I connect with for years or seconds - better than I once did. This is the value, if anything.

Q: You tend to remove yourself and do so on the strength of this value, this openness or inspiration.

A: Yes.

Q: To what degree is your fate sealed? If, after all this is your theme, then to what length can you go, and, more to the point, are you not trapped in this theme?

A: I have thought about this a lot recently. There is a book I return too often by Otto Rank called Art and Artist. I find myself reading portions of is it were prose, then setting to task on a chapter or two. I find myself wondering as I read if I am trapped and love my chains, even when I hate them. Yet there is a part of me that feels everything could stop, a part of me that even wants everything to stop, just to feel that act, that creative energy build from within and without a person, beyond a person. Then I remind myself, it is the task of the individual to inspire beyond themselves, to challenge themselves, and even so, never becomes attached to that which they achieve. Sure, I am trapped, I am always trapped. But the moment I can’t step away, the moment I can’t follow music, I am more than trapped, I am dead. I recall reading a line somewhere where the description of dead eyes, of living and walking and working with dead eyes, struck me. That there was no knowledge of inspiration, of being outdone and transformed, in the same way science has transformed over the years. The way we understand particles and waves, matter, and mass, time and space have transformed. Holding to the common, which is all too often the thing we have done maybe once or twice, is not good enough, we can do more. Such an attitude begs the line by Henry Miller… We have enslaved ourselves!

Fundamentally I have always wondered about the naïve questions in life. I have wonder why we can’t be happy, why we have to do certain things, hid certain things, and treat people in certain ways which are hurtful. The answer, of course, is fear, and so I have wondered, specifically, what is it that we are afraid of, and are we afraid of the things we fear or is it the case that we are afraid of things because we fear? In this way I am a child, and cannot, now, at my age, will not, let go of these simple questions. But this is something else.