Thursday, March 29, 2007

the artist

i once watched a documentary about john lennon. the music was great and the insight into his life was eye-opening to me, a pseudo-beatles fan, but there was one scene in particular that i felt really revealed who john lennon was as an artist.

a trespasser was caught and, in an amusingly court-like manner, brought to see the great musician himself. lennon emerged from his house in his pjs and asked the trespassing fan why he wanted to see him.

upon the man's expression of the desire to see if the musical genius were as impressive as his music, lennon replied impassively, "i'm just a man making music." or something to that effect.

he said it in a carefree manner, almost aloof, like he didn't give a damn about anything other than writing songs. he showed no emotion, none of that charm his music possessed. it was as if he didn't have a soul and the only way he came close to having one is by writing songs that had far more life than himself.

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i met up with my friends from school earlier tonight. we caught up with each other, asked about old friends, and somehow the conversation turned to kinda heavy subjects like life and death and suicide-in-between, work and money and how competitive things are.

it made me feel terribly small. it made me want to dig a hole in the garden and just lie there in the dirt, away from the real world that isn't "coming", but is already here.

it reminded me how immature i still am, sheltered in my student's life.

i have no desire to crawl out, though. i don't think i'd be able to weather what's in store for me. i would much much rather give my soul to what i love and let nothing else matter.

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i envy the artist. being lost in a world of beauty and living an obsession with preserving the essence of it must be so much better than allowing oneself to experience reality.

it means being able to be idealistic always and to indulge in fantasies of world peace, free love (minus the orgies) and good times over mugs of steaming hot coffee. it means having the naivety of a dreamer who lives to create beautiful representatives of himself without ever needing to try on the world for size.

instead, i chose science and a mind that rationalises everything so much so that i feel like a wuss hiding in a suit of armour that i willed to exist. or rather, simply have nothing but faith that the armour really is there.

i identify with the artist tonight.

he's right though. i don't understand.

lishun at 11:59 PM

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