::: EVERYBODY WANTS TO FEEL IT :::

Everybody wants to feel...

pretty basic statement.

Sure we all know it is truth but feel - feel what exactly?

Sometimes we think we know what we want to feel and how to get that for ourselves but when it sneaks up on us and hits the spot - Amen! Strange creatures humans all wanting to deny the fact that we are indeed cliches. Self aware bots wearing our emotional amour we savvy our way through each day.

Right now as I type some music has started playing that's perfectly bluesy and the sky is grey as the sun sets on this cold Melbourne day, it feels perfect! Yes its one of those exact moments. So I am a cliche but god it feels good.

Meeting people that connect and feel with us is magical. Sharing an interest or taste, music, food some idiotic and obscure 'like' that you may have is so rewarding. I have friends and family that share a rapport that can fundamentally 'put me back together'. Its not that I am emotionally unfolding at every turn but sometimes its like an itch that requires attention. Someone to make you laugh or say that it is okay. Its that someone or thing that re assembles the misaligned within. That said it can also be a song, a place, a type of weather, a hug, a smell, an image, an event we experience and its all okay again. We let our guard down remove our cynical filters and feel good again! We are moved, it strikes a chord and we relax and let something good in.

Tarred With the Same Brush

Nature too does a stellar job at it.
For me the best time to run is when the weather is about to turn, the wind is squally the sky is threatening. For some reason I find it exhilarating, some light rain on the face the bracing cold, trying to outrun the down pour. Then getting in to feel safe and warm sheltered from the storm or rain when it hits is something I love to feel.

Artists make us feel. Putting their grey matter out there on the line their emotions and selves its all laid bare. There is a bravery that creative people exhibit that is truly unique. Many a brilliant talent is never shared due to a type of cowardice or humility. No one welcomes a cutting comment or judgment but trying to avoid it by playing small just sells us all short.

To stick your neck out and expose a part of your brain leaves one wide open for all manner of onslaught. I am a hideously sensitive person - idiotically so. While I continue to work on that flaw I leave myself wide open by putting my personal work out there flaws and all. So when I see anothers work that resonates deep within me I appreciate the emotional risk and vulnerability involved.

Feelings and what triggers them is purely subjective as is the experience of categorising them. I have had moments of exquisite pain (although I am also trying to eliminate that too), embraced angst and willingly let myself be immersed in the misery of a song for instance. I call that doing a sad.

Massive Sad

Finding a vehicle that can exult us, make us cry tears of gratitude, sing, dance, stun, arrest is what I want to feel. There is nothing like that genuine core feeling, often it is a reaction.

So I want to recognise and thank the songwriters, composers and musicians that make my innards reel, the photographers, artists and film makers, comedians, actors, performers that have helped define my take on life, the designers of this world, the architects, the fashion designers, those that design, the animators, the speakers and the writers, the people that live with attitude and to those brave people that wear their heart on their sleeve...

Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for the reveal. Thank you for letting me feel. Thank you for putting me back together.

Jealosy and the Truth

I once read that jealousy can be a very insightful tool. It is a sign. I believe this to be true.

It shows you what you want - from the gut.

No filter...its unpleasant...

like the urge to be sick,

no one wants it.

But...

it does happen from time to time so why not take this unpalatable human reflex and examine it until it becomes useful.

We all like to think it doesn't happen to us we are enlightened and aligned enough with our own wants and desires that it wont occur within us. We are enlightened beings - this written by me the woman who just saw someone with a better bob than mine, at the supermarket of all places. We snuck glances back and forth through out the entire fruit and vegetable department. Truth is she won - meh hair just wasn't on the top of my priority list today, besides she was naturally olive I cant compete with that and perfect hair.

What makes you jealous?

There are so many things I can say that I am not envious of, I applaud others successes and endeavors, usually they have earned it.

I am talking the kind of afront to yourself that's like a slap in the face, one you didn't see coming. Showing you what you chose not to pay attention to.

They are the telling emotions we should stop and listen to.
Perhaps they are instincts screaming something at you.

Don't dismiss it, listen to it.

Its as unpleasant as rising bile but my my it surely is valuable.

Next time when it happens listen it just might be your gut connecting to your brain shouting listen to me!

AUTHENTICITY AND THE HUMAN CONDITION

People are deamonised if a unique idea is unpopular.

People that are unapologetically themselves are very attractive.

I am not sure I am one of them.

Flawed fascinating original people.

I envy the individuals that have crafted their madness into a career. Brilliant bright often offensive challenging sensitive confident or not creators. Creators of characters, performers, artists, thinkers that dare. People with the sheer gusto to shove it out there, spill their innards thoughts and insights onto us mere mortals. People that create a stir, cause great debate, challenge laws and at a micro level out there just doing it.

Unconventional; men dressed as women with faux full fleshed lives that span decades, men who are short bald fat and brash that carry huge Hollywood clout. Thin delicate nervous men who perform with courage and conviction on the world stage. Humorists that deride incontinence and mental illness and aging. Artists that portray a slut as the divine. Film makers that show bizarre incest or a car tyre in place of a leading actor.

The unmistakable Bad Boy Bubby by Rolf de Heer

The brilliant and fragile looking Barry Otto

Barry Humphries, Danny Divito, Barry Otto, Little Britain, Jeff Koons, Rolf de Heer, Quentin Dupieux. Without their commercial success what might they be? What if we met these people and they had not garnered fame?

The unlikely A lister Danny Divito

'Hi I am Danny Divito I plan to be a great A list Hollywood actor and producer'

Hmmm - doesn't seem likely.

Jeff Koons 'Violet Ice'

Paris Hilton...hmmm... she does what? Gets drunk and behaves poorly with no pants or pubic hair..go ahead form a career out of that love while you are a no one. The career choices might have been slightly different.But lets get back to the unique talented ones.

What of the brilliant actor, musician, artist, performer, writer too shy to pedal their work? What of the mediocre that know how to work the media machine? I know who we get to see.

Personally fear prevents me from exposing my truest creative ideas. They are too forthright and in direct contrast to how I live my conventional life. They are rough brash raw and unedited I would offend many people no doubt, peoples ideas of who I am might be ruptured along with my relationships. Or perhaps no one would care? Perhaps it would flop, perhaps I would get just enough encouragement to give me confidence, or god forbid fierce direction.

I am always trying to be the better part of me - always.
But alas I am human so I don't claim to always get it right.

Simmering just below the surface is a performer who wants to act out the worst in me - or what I deem inexcusable in other people, to unleash the crude base uncultured moronic alter ego me. I admire it so much in other people. Chris Lilley does it so well.

I have fantasies about photographic exhibitions that would require a two month intensive debrief with the best counselors and specialists to come down from. I dream of a shocking provocative work of art. I have the characters, the sketches and the storyboards. I just don't have the confidence or the will to dare...its the dreaded cliche. Its the fear of being judged or failing its the reason most of us just 'dont'.

The small fearful me thinks I couldn't stand the glare. Big me thinks just be you.

We will see.