Solus Vox Desertus

The very fact that you are reading this serves to undercut the argument I am about to make, but it's still a point I think is very relevant to many things that many people do.  It is oft-repeated that people are social beings, requiring social nourishment and contact to bring meaning and context to our lives.  And while simply being in the presence of others does fulfill some of this need, the role of communication cannot be over-emphasized.  I have touched on the importance of language before, but here more generally communication is what I'm referring to (as any psychology undergraduate can tell you, there are a whole host of non-verbal tics, clues, and signs that our brains pick up on without us knowing).  Communication is required for understanding, which is required for trust, which is required in general for most human interactions.  From the basic 'social contract' theory of government (where we rely on our fellow citizens to obey laws and rules that we also follow), to deeper levels of trust, such as that between friends, family and lover.

Communication is a necessary ingredient of social interaction, but I feel that the context, content, and expression is changing rapidly in the modern world.  During my formative teenage years I read near back to back Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, and while both (to some degree) deal with the interaction between the individual and society or the government at large, another important component of these stories is the use of language and communication in society.  There was a passage in particular in Huxley's tome that struck a very deep chord with me, something I've felt to this day.  A conversation is occurring between two characters, with one expressing: "I'm thinking of a queer feeling I sometimes get, a feeling that I've got something important to say and the power to say it - only I don't know what it is, and I can't make any use of the power."  While that may play to smug feelings of uniqueness and importance we may have (I'm not the only one am I?), it also crystallizes a key component of the modern internet society.

Mass communication has shifted the balance of communication, from conversation to dictation.  A news anchor reaches millions of people, and the disparity between what is received to what we can contribute I believe has started to create a sense of vexation in society at large.   A longing need to be heard.  So what has been the response?  More one sided communication, but on a much larger and personal scale.  We have abandoned the content and context of communication for the satisfaction of being heard.  But I'm not sure we are really being heard.  Much like John the Baptist, I feel like we are all simply crying out to a desert.  This isn't to say that there aren't sympathetic listeners, but rather that the driving need to be heard is something that modern forms of communication don't sate.  We have facebook status updates, 140 character tweets, text messaging, live-journals, emailing, blogging, and video journals on youtube.  Context of the communication aside, the proliferation and adoption of these services shows how deeply we want to be heard.

I won't pretend to be immune; in fact it'd be quite foolish considering you're reading this on a blog at the moment, but it seems we all want to be famous.  We all want to have people know about us, and hear our story.  Like Gilgamesh who had his name passed on through the generations, fame can be seen as a shortcut to immortality, a chance to leave something that will last.  However, this itself is foolish, because as time goes on, our heroes are legends start to get crowded, they become recycled and stereotypical, with a few archetypes appearing here and there.  We want to be heard because we are hearing constantly, and much like the feedback received from a microphone left in front of a speaker, the noise will just get louder and louder.

Perhaps it's hypocritical to make the remark, but I felt it had to be said.  So here dear reader, a toast to clearer, deeper, and meaningful two-way communication.  And if no one reads this, I guess I'm just another person shouting in the desert, and I apologize for the racket.

Iron Oxide

Rust.  Like a scab, it signals decay.  Creeping out of nowhere, but announcing its presence with its earthly hues.  My hometown is full of it.  Rusty train lines, crumbling brick, fading paint.  It's slipping into decay.  The ground beneath it is hollow, drained of its precious coal, what was once the town's lifeblood.  Now the closed mines are like open sores, draining chemicals into the streams.  The stream beds are caked with chemical deposits, and Trout Run should have the word "Stocked" appended to it.  Throughout my childhood you could smell the sulfur around the water, assaulting the senses with all the repugnance of rotten eggs.  The streams are now clear, not just of their yellow coloring, but also of the life that they once supported.  The country needed coal, and the town provided it.  The country needed steel, and the area provided it.  But no longer, and my town is dying.

On some level I always knew, however part of me never wanted to believe it.  I saw my future there - some future.  But, the last time I was back, the truth hit me.  I didn't realize how much I dislike it.  How stifling it felt. How depressing, small, and disconnected it seems.  Don't misunderstand me.  I may have some misgivings about growing up there, but I am who I am because of that town.  Anywhere else and I wouldn't be me.  You grow up in a small coal town and you learn early the difference between anthracite and bituminous coal.  You get used to the large boney piles of waste coal and dirt.  Become accustomed to streets of identical company houses.  Of hearing stories about how the town used to look in its heydays.  "We used to have seven grocery stores.  Can you believe it?" "This town had three movie theaters.  Three!"  Become oblivious to the absurdity of the same family names appearing again and again; a lineage that isn't going anywhere.  Or even enamored by its quirky charm. 

Perhaps its part of the reason I held onto it for so long.  It was safe, and maybe I thought I could save it.  I never really got a chance to look at it for what it was though, until I left.  A fresh perspective.  A place where rusty train tracks and abandoned buildings aren't the norm.  From my house, you could, and can, still hear the trains that pass through.  They used to stop.  No longer.  My town is dying, and its doing it too slow and quietly for anyone to care.  It didn't quite come as a shock, I mean I've always known, but accepting it was the hard part.  For a long time, it's been a huge part of my life.  And while its helped shape me into who I am, I realize that its not all I'll be.  I held onto it to avoid having to actually question what I what out of life.  Where I want to go, and what to actually do.   A hundred, or even fifty years ago it would've been an easy call.  My soul would've been owned to the company store, while I toiled  underground.  Or I would've been drenched in sweat from the heat of the steel furnaces.  Laboring like my grandfathers and their fathers did.  However, I don't have that burden.  Mine is that of choice.  A gift.  A wonderful, wonderful, gift.  One I've been content to let gather dust - but no longer.I want more.  That much, I know. I've realized that this world is larger than I've given it credit.  I've come to realize something.  You can leave the small town, but the small town never leaves you.  Part of my soul will always be a covered with a bit of coal dust and rust.  Not as a sign of decay, but as a one of creation.

File Under 'A'

One of the biggest boundaries to meaningful connections between people is how we usually fail to fully realize the depth of other people.  Speaking from experience, I know I have the awful habit of tagging people.   Sorting and separating, labeling.  A deeply held organizational desire, or something more malignant? To some degree, beginning interactions like this facilitates understanding and helps people generate a template of others to later cover with details.  But at a certain point, it becomes restrictive.  We're people.  We breathe, we eat, we sleep, we are unique in at least some regard.  Why should we be so surprised then to find out that the bouncer at the local bar volunteers at the homeless shelter, that the taxi cab driver has an amazing voice, or the cashier at Walmart practices law.  Our first impressions while maybe sometimes right, never reveal the whole picture.  We all have talents that we're proud of to some degree or another, and at one point in time I thought mine was drawing.

Looking back, perhaps my artistic senses were a little skewed, I mean, sure I could stay in the lines with my crayons as a child, and could draw shapes.  But much of my 'work', was most likely me copying (but not tracing, mind you) pictures from Highlights magazine, video game player's guides, or drawing books.  You could tell what 'it' was supposed to be, but something was always slightly off.  The dimensions a little skewed, the colors a little desaturated, the lines maybe just a little too squiggly.  My originality perhaps really only shone through in the amount of mazes and schematics that covered my notebooks and folders.  There are times in your life you look back and wonder "what if?"  I remember taking one of those mail-away art tests from the TV at the insistence of my parents.  A few months later I received a call asking me I'd like to take some local classes.  I declined.  Maybe I had a promising future in architecture.  I always liked the straight lines and edges of drawing buildings.  I had a mind for layouts.  I was math oriented.  A blonde Howard Roark?  Maybe not, but I can pretend, no?

However, one thing is for sure, I sure as hell wasn't no DaVinci.  To emphasize this point, let's take a look at some self portraits through the years.  However, first I'd like to take this time to thank Mrs. Pribish for thinking this was a good project, and keeping our drawings from year to year. To this day it remains one of my favorite things about elementary school. Secondly, I considered putting some copyright statement here, but honestly, if you end up making money off of a 2nd grader's self portrait, then obviously you are a marketing genius, and deserve every cent you make.

First Grade

I sorry ma'am, but it seems your son has a giraffe neck. Also jaundice.

I think this is good for a first grader, I'm actually kind of amazed by my attention to detail.  It may be hard to see, but I actually colored my tear ducts, however, I obviously know nothing of human anatomy, because they are on the wrong side of my eyes.  Or maybe I had that medically corrected as a child.  However, I am slightly concerned with my mouth.  Do I have lockjaw?  Did I forget to color my mouth?  Do I have one gigantic tooth?  The world may never know.  Even at this young age I was contemplating the dichotomy between happiness and sadness, represented here by a lemon-yellow sun and an ashen cloud.  Also, to people that don't remember or didn't know me as child, at one point in my life I had male pattern baldness and wore a bright yellow toupee.

Second Grade

I honestly have no idea.

 Yeah.  Uhhh, would you believe me if I said I became really interested in Picasso?  No, well it was worth a shot.  I'm not sure if this is a self portrait, or some kind of drawing about people with heads shaped like potatoes.  I'm sure if I had brought this home, my parents would've thrown out our fridge, just so they'd never have to come with an excuse as to why they wouldn't shame  our kitchen with this monstrosity.  I'm sure if I ever brought this home and asked to put it on the fridge I would've been out on the street.  I mean, that's only rational thing to do when your firstborn comes home believing this is something they should be proud of.  One final thought,  what's with the ominous 9 in the background (sky)?  Let's just move on, this picture is really starting to creep me out.

Third Grade

I think this picture sums up the next 13 years of my life: "Hello, my name is JR, and I like video games"

 Apparently for some time during my childhood I didn't see another person's head for at least two years, and thought it was shaped like all sorts of weird things.  Here we can see I was experimenting with cubism; which is maybe perhaps slightly better than the offense I committed against the art world in 2nd grade.  I don't know why I was so scared to use any of the paper in this drawing.  Maybe I was unaware the upper half of the paper actually existed, or maybe I was trying not to draw attention to the fact that even thought my head is shaped like a square, the sides still aren't even straight.  I'm not sure what's happening with my eyes in this picture.  I didn't have to wear glasses as a child, but it seems I didn't know this fact at the time.  Also, my nose looks like it belongs on Beavis and Butthead.  Maybe I do have a shot at this art thing after all, does anyone know if Mike Judge needs any animators for the new episodes?  One final note:  I never owned a NY Jets jersey, I just liked the color green.  And video games, if that isn't clear, and I'm very good at them too.  I mean look.   I'm not even looking at the TV!  I probably got the high score and put in "ASS" as the initials. Just kidding, I probably used "JRK".  Isn't it cool, my initials tell so much about me!

Fourth Grade

I'm completely serious.

 Okay.  I don't think I could run out of things to say about this picture.  Apparently  I thought I had become the lesbian captain of the high school football team on vacation in the Rockies or something. While I have a striking jaw line, there's just something unsettling and feminine about this one.  I am however glad to see that my bleach blonde hair hadn't taken on the darker hue it now has.  My eyebrows on the other hand....  Sadly, I think this is one of the best out of all these self-portraits.  The head shape may be slightly off, but it's fairly accurate, or at least it is for a version of me 11 years older than when this was drawn.  The ears may be too high too, and my skin looks like some kind of wax statue, and there's no shading to speak of, it's pretty much downhill from here.  See, maybe it's probably a good thing I had a back up plan, I don't think I could survive on what an artist makes, especially when your best work occurs before you have run out of fingers upon which to count your age.

Fifth Grade

Don't be fooled by the green hockey stick and basketball, he's a nerd.

I told you I like green, right?  Like, a lot?  I think I used no less than 4 different green crayons for this drawing.  I also thought it would be good to save in pictorial for all future generations what I looked like with braces.  I'm stealing some elements my earlier works at this point, it's clear I've hit my peak as  an artist.  So I've brought back my 1st grade giraffe neck, although now it's cleverly disguised with a shirt with a collar right out of a Dr. Suess book.  And the Mr.Potato head ears from 2nd grade are making their triumphant return.  While I think the white stuff in my eye is supposed to be a reflection on my eyes, it makes it look like I'm looking creepily to the upper left corner.  Oh well, there's always next year I suppose.  

Sixth Grade

As per state and federal law, I'm required to tell you . . . 

This has to be the result of me getting lazy and describing myself to a sleepy police sketch artist who happened to be there for career day.  I refused to believe anything else.  Notice how the artist took the time to render each and every ridge around the edge of my shirt, and my hair is halfway decent.  However, he must have ran out of time before he had to give this picture some depth, or maybe he wore down his pencils  drawing my house in the background.  Whatever the situation, it sure was nice of him to take some time out of his busy schedule to entertain some 6th grader.

Seventh Grade

Why yes,  I have seen a person before, why do you keep asking that?

I never quite mastered ears.  Or noses.  Or where eyes go.  Or how not to make a person look like a lifeless mannequin.  But there is color in this one!  It seems without the help of that sketch artist, I fell back into the habit of drawing people with straw hay for hair.  And the collar on this shirt has gone into full overdrive mode.  For every that's going wrong in this picture, the lips don't seem to be completely horrible, so I guess that's something.  I feel like there's a lot of promise here, but something went horribly wrong in the execution of this drawing.  Maybe I skipped breakfast.  And did I tell you how I like green?  Just in case you didn't notice.

Well, that concludes the series of self portraits through elementary and middle school.  As you can see, the world is clearly a worse off place because I'm not sharing my artistic skills with it.  I'm sure there are hundreds, literally hundreds of dollars worth of commissions waiting for me.  Better get in line now, because now that these have hit the internet I'm sure everyone's gonna want an original 'Koban' over their fireplace.  Please, cash or check only, no money orders.

Honorable Mentions: Summer 2010

Meh.

So, thinking back on this series, I decided how I'd render myself now.  Yeah, make of it what you will.  Moving on.

First Grade Collage

That's glue.

MOMMY, I MAKE ART WITH GLUE AND CUT PAPER!  WHY YOU RUN AWAY?  YOU NO PUT ON FRIDGE?

Photoshop Render: 2008

The key to Photoshop is to use more layers.   No, even more.  More.  And stop.

Fourth Grade, yeah, the future called, it wants that 'JR's Best Art Award' now.

Y A B150N?

As I walked into the room it was the first thing I noticed.  I suppose he purposefully chose that spot so that all that entered would have their eyes drawn to it.  I'm certain of it.  He was a man of the theater and was always concerned about placement.  Like most things he said or did, you always knew there was a story lurking just under the surface.  Some nugget of information that you knew he wanted to share, but would rather have you reach on your own.  He admired Socrates, and if you spent enough time around him you started getting the feeling that Socrates never drank the Hemlock, but instead sneaked off, and had somehow ended up here.  He told us about Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Joyce, Chekov, Hemmingway.  He was an English teacher, although looking back, he never taught us.  This isn't to say we didn't learn.  No,  we learned plenty, however, he never taught us as much at point us towards the path of experience.  Much like the twisted figures in Plato's cave, we sat there.  He didn't breaks our bonds, or drag us from the supposed safety of our gloomy world.  Rather he simply handed us a key, and told us of another world.

While labeled as an English class, sitting in his room was one of my earliest, and probably many of my peer's experience with Philosophy.  Or classical music.  Or archaeological psychology.  Or dadist paintings.  Or obscure 50s science fiction.  Or Sixteenth century Sonnets.  Or obscure stage shows.  Absurdly enough, which would be appropriate for his class, when we had a substitute we ended up doing more actual work than when he was in.  But we learned much less.  We would sit and listen to him explain the significance of lions in Old Man in the Sea, or how the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th were a reaffirmation of life, or the importance of when Henry Jones senior called his son Indiana instead of "Junior", or the use of clothes, cloth and rope as imagery in MacBeth - these days were always more informative than doing a crossword trying to fit characters from the Divind Comedy into the grid, or filling in the blanks with the names of Greek and Roman historical figures.  The class should have been called: "Subtext: Finding the Meaning in Life."

Class was easily derailed, but it never seemed like a minute was wasted.  One minute we'd be analyzing hartless hinds, and how it was a phrase that worked on multiple levels, and the next we'd be discussing Waiting for Godot.  I don't think any of us appreciated, or even now fully appreciate the role he played in preparing us for what waited us after we stepped outside of class.  The thing that always struck me was his perceptiveness.  He seemed to be able to read people as well as any book, even when it seemed like he wasn't paying attention.  Connections seemed to float out of the air, and his class was the only time I've ever witness students learning during roll call.

It didn't take long for the question to arise.  But that was how he designed it.  The poster's location was no mistake.  Neither was it's crude image.  Something that used to roam the Earth before men developed culture.  As this was the beginning of culture.  A picture of a bison.  "Why a bison?"  read a classmate, the words sitting lazily beneath the representation of the creature.  "Why not?"  was the reply.  We had barely finished roll call, which took two days, but the discussion that followed would set the standard for the rest of the year. He walked over to the chalk board.

"A"  "B"

Alpha,  bet.  The foundations of language.  He flipped the "A", and extended the crossbar, turning it into a crude bison head.  Next he rotated the "B", modifying it slightly to make it look like a primitive hut.  Somewhere in a cave thousands of years ago, someone decided to engage in prehistoric grafitti.  Indeed, history wouldn't exist without this grafitti.  From a picture of a bison, it became simplified to just a crude head.  A mark of trade.  The hut became a mark of population.  The beginning of culture.  The beginning of the written word.  The beginning of history.  All because of some marking in a cave.  Much like the Promethues who discovered fire, or realized the potential of the wheel, the artist who decided to decorate the inside of that cave altered human history - by creating it.

Much like fire or the wheel, language is a tool.  We often don't think of it as such, but we implement it and it modifies us.  Language subconsciously rewires how we view, interact, and interpret our world.  Even right now, you most likely are hearing yourself read this in your head.  Or have an inner monologue about examining yourself reading this passage.  It plays a key role in the conceptualization of one's self.  Much like any other tool, it can be used in a variety of ways.  Like the exacting precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel in a dictionary, to the flowing of prose, to the butchered semantics of text type; language reflects its use and user.  Function following form, or vice versa?  Perhaps neither.  While it may be obvious to most that it bridges the gap between individual consciences, language also plays an equally important, if perhaps not more interesting role.  It creates the framework around which we analyze our own mind - our thoughts, dreams, realizations, hopes, desires, musings, and beliefs.  If is both a tool of simplification and complication.  Pulling in two different directions it helps boil abstract concepts down to a form that can easily be shared between people, as well as taking a simple concept and showing the complex detail that isn't apparent upon a cursory glance.  Since time immortal, poets, painters, priests, and the general public have been concern with a simple four letter word.  The Greeks recognized its complexity and created alternate words for the variations.  While everyone may be referring to the same thing in much the same way, the individual experiences and conceptualizations may differ.  However language allows these divergent principles to be brought together.  It functions as our consciousness' lens to the external world and a bridge to others.  And all from such humble beginnings.

"Why a bison?"
"Why not?" he replied.

If you take the high road and I take the low road

If there ever was an important lesson to learn in life it's this: ultimately you're responsible for yourself, and really only yourself.  I don't mean this in an hyper-individualistic sense, but rather that as individuals, we are ultimately responsible for our own choices and decisions.  However, herein lies the frustration.  Autonomy carries with it a limiting factor.  Just as you are the captain of your own destiny, those other ships twinkling in the night have someone else at the helm.  Persuasion, trickery, coercion, and deceit are fundamentally limited as they ultimately rely on the consent, mistake, acceptance, or acquiesce of another.  Conflict is a product of individualism.  It's inevitable.  Rarely do people's plans mesh perfectly together; and if they are - pinch yourself, you're probably just dreaming.  It's not a bad thing.  Much like wind disturbing water makes it seem like the sky is dancing on the water's surface, variety makes life all the more interesting.  A lot more interesting than the alternative, lockstep restriction.

Besides, there's not much we could do about it anyways.  Imagine how astronomical it would be to get everyone to agree on everything.  Just to put it in perspective, imagine how hard it would be to get yourself to agree on the same thing after some period of time.  Unless you happen to own a time machine, have been travelling at near light speed, or were frozen (all very unlikely), you are probably a different person to some degree from only a few years ago.  Duplication of thought- imagine what it would take.  Thought processes are the product of electrical and chemical reactions in our brain.  These reactions result from and impress upon the external world in a intricate interplay.  To end up with the same result would require the same external stimuli perceived in the same way, and processed by the same system.  But our minds are products of the past, so that would have to be accounted for to.  See where I'm going?  If not impossible, improbable.  Highly improbable.  The amazing differences between people can be easily summed up in our eyes.  While the iris is such a small area, the extreme uniqueness only serves to underscore our individuality.  (So technically David Bowie counts as two people, although it should be more considering how many phases he's gone through)

So the challenge: surviving and thriving in a world with inevitable conflict.  Realize that you can change your own future by the choices you make, and try not to get bogged down because of others choices.  Ultimately you have to realize that others are going to make their own choices, according to whatever wishes, plans or schemes they have.  The paths that people take will always be different - as different as the people themselves.