continuing silence

1/19/15

          "I bet no one will able to shut you up after the 15th!"
                                         - a friend

  This will be my last entry in this tedious blog.
  I am still silent. I have no good reason to be otherwise at this point. There is nothing i miss about speaking, other than its convenience. In this modern age, speaking seems more indulgence than necessity to me.
  Very little of what i've heard bears repeating. Likewise anything i've written. With over 7 billion people in the world (products of billions before them), very few ideas or thoughts are original. Mine are no exception. I'm sure many have already said what i have chosen to write over the past year.
  I have seen and done things that were byproducts of this project, that have altered the way i will see and do things in the future, however. Two examples immediately spring to mind. Number one is falling in love with bicycling as a form of transportation for body and mind. The other is that i have developed a strong aversion to wearing sunglasses.
  I think it's because i desperately want to see the world exactly how it is. Not altered by some artificial device designed to make it darker, sharper or glare free, while simultaneously making me appear more stylish or cool. I want to see everything, everyone and myself, from all angles, without any distortion whatsoever.

  As always, complete objectivity in all things will continue to be my goal. Narrow subjectivity, i'm sure, will continue to be my burden.
  

continuing silence

1/15/15

  This is the day i was supposed to start talking again.
  The day before i began my year of silence i was a bit apprehensive. The thought of making noise again, brings on a feeling of complete panic.

continuing silence

1/4/15

  Is it possible to change so much, that the person you were, essentially "dies"?
  It would be convenient to be released from past transgressions by completing a personality suicide, or by saying "I'm sorry" to an all powerful god. But i don't think either really results in complete transformation. We may shed skins like a growing snake, but we are basically the same, no matter how many scales we shed.
  I have received phone calls from people that i've had no contact with for almost a year. They assume my silence is over with the passing of January 1st. (January 15th is the actual day this endeavor officially ends.)  Friends have expressed a desire to continue where we left off...     
  I remember texting many of these same people birthday greetings during the past year. Three of them responded to my attempted communication with the query, "Who is this?".
  I wonder...
  I know i'm still the same, but will anyone recognize me?
 

continuing silence

12/16/14

  I'm working on a new piece. This new artwork will actually have a sound component to it. The noise it makes, will give the piece more strength. Most of its power however, will come from its visual "quietness". I will be able to create this paradox because of what i've learned over the past 11 months.
  Before i began this project, i steadfastly made every one of my pieces soundless. But sound isn't inherently "bad", it isn't "good" either. It's what makes the noise, that should be held up for scrutiny.
  I don't feel much like writing anymore, but ideas for new artworks are multiplying in my head exponentially. My brain feels like one of those expanding Jiffy Pop popcorn things. I want to make things that are bigger than just words...
  One month to go, and i realize that so many of our words are just wasted energy. The spoken ones, and often the written ones, as well.
  I will be quiet for the rest of my life, even though i may need to make noise now and then.

continuing silence

12/1/14

  I haven't felt the urge to write in a while. Silence has become such a way of life for me over the past 10+ months, that nothing i experience or feel as a direct result of my living and observing it, seems unusual or worthy of documentation anymore.
  We human beings devote most of our attention to that which is new and different. It doesn't matter if it is wonderful or horrific, as long as it's novel. Often, when we get used to something, it loses its hold over us.
  When i am working on a new artwork, i thrive and face every challenge it presents with a fearless drive that i lack in my approach to all other aspects of my life. But when the artwork is completed, i want nothing more to do with it, i want it out of my sight. My mind becomes fixed on making something else, something different, something better.
  In everything but the pursuit of Art, i am extremely methodical and almost pathologically adverse to change. Because this year of silence started as art and changed into day to day life, i have become ambivalent about it. A part of me is done with it and ready to move on, while the majority of my being dreads shattering the quiet and wants to stay enveloped in it indefinitely.

continuing silence

11/17/14

  While heat is a noisy clamor, there is quiet in the cold. Snow muffles sound, as frost grabs at exhalations of conversation. Crickets cease and windows are closed. Tightly wrapped against the cold, people go to great lengths in order not to feel it.

continuing silence

11/12/14

  "...we had to get him debarked, now he screams."
  I thought she was kidding. She wasn't.
  I have been silent for 10 months. I have not had any urge to speak, until now. I want to scream.