but she is working only for the Future
she is missing all the information
being given
to her
knowledge that could never fit in her knapsack
or be captured with flash photography

can’t even write it down

for it moves faster then reiteration

this moment cannot be salvaged
stop trying

breathe in breathe out
experience now

Lily stepped back to get her canvas – so – into perspective. It was an odd road to be walking, this of painting. Out and out one went, further and further, until at last one seemed to be on a narrow plank, perfectly alone, over the sea.

Why then did she do it? She looked at the canvas, lightly scored with running lines. It would be hung in the servants’ bedrooms. It would be rolled up and stuffed under a sofa. What was the good of doing it then, and she heard some voice saying she couldn’t paint, saying she couldn’t create, as if she were caught up in one of those habitual currents in which after a certain time experience forms in the mind, so that one repeats words without being aware any longer of who originally spoke them.

Can’t paint, can’t write, she murmured monotonously, anxiously considering what her plan of attack should be. For the mass loomed before her; it protruded; she felt it pressing on her eyeballs. Then, as if some juice necessary for the lubrication of her faculties were spontaneously squirted, she began precariously dipping among the blues and umbers, moving her brush hither and thither, but it was now heavier and went slow, as if it had fallen in with some rhythm which was dictated to her (she kept looking at the hedge, at the canvas) by what she saw, so that while her hand quivered with life, this rhythm was strong enough to bear her along with it on its current. Certainly she was losing consciousness of outer things. And as she lost consciousness of outer things, and her name and her personality and her appearance, and whether Mr. Carmichael was there or not, her mind kept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names and sayings, and memories and ideas, like a fountain spurting over that glaring, hideously difficult white space, while she modeled it with greens and blues.

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was – her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

I have been told before that I would make a great teacher. I was uncomfortable with this compliment because of that saying “those who can, do;  those who can’t, teach.” (George Bernard Shaw) I let it insult me. “Don’t you think I make a better artist than art teacher?” But I am starting to see both careers as the same. How can a teacher teach any subject without having a real passion for the subject. The best teacher’s I’ve had were very successful in their art career’s, and who come from the school of thought that if one has knowledge of something, they must share it; knowledge is not a gift to give, it’s a duty.

Maybe I’ll take a my PDP and teach highschool art or drama…maybe.

Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change

by Derrick Jensen

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

Or let’s talk energy. Kirkpatrick Sale summarized it well: “For the past 15 years the story has been the same every year: individual consumption—residential, by private car, and so on—is never more than about a quarter of all consumption; the vast majority is commercial, industrial, corporate, by agribusiness and government [he forgot military]. So, even if we all took up cycling and wood stoves it would have a negligible impact on energy use, global warming and atmospheric pollution.”

Or let’s talk waste. In 2005, per-capita municipal waste production (basically everything that’s put out at the curb) in the U.S. was about 1,660 pounds. Let’s say you’re a die-hard simple-living activist, and you reduce this to zero. You recycle everything. You bring cloth bags shopping. You fix your toaster. Your toes poke out of old tennis shoes. You’re not done yet, though. Since municipal waste includes not just residential waste, but also waste from government offices and businesses, you march to those offices, waste reduction pamphlets in hand, and convince them to cut down on their waste enough to eliminate your share of it. Uh, I’ve got some bad news. Municipal waste accounts for only 3 percent of total waste production in the United States.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying we shouldn’t live simply. I live reasonably simply myself, but I don’t pretend that not buying much (or not driving much, or not having kids) is a powerful political act, or that it’s deeply revolutionary. It’s not. Personal change doesn’t equal social change.

So how, then, and especially with all the world at stake, have we come to accept these utterly insufficient responses? I think part of it is that we’re in a double bind. A double bind is where you’re given multiple options, but no matter what option you choose, you lose, and withdrawal is not an option. At this point, it should be pretty easy to recognize that every action involving the industrial economy is destructive (and we shouldn’t pretend that solar photovoltaics, for example, exempt us from this: they still require mining and transportation infrastructures at every point in the production processes; the same can be said for every other so-called green technology). So if we choose option one—if we avidly participate in the industrial economy—we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of “success” in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity. And we really lose because industrial civilization is killing the planet, which means everyone loses. If we choose the “alternative” option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn’t even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses. The third option, acting decisively to stop the industrial economy, is very scary for a number of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that we’d lose some of the luxuries (like electricity) to which we’ve grown accustomed, and the fact that those in power might try to kill us if we seriously impede their ability to exploit the world—none of which alters the fact that it’s a better option than a dead planet. Any option is a better option than a dead planet.

Besides being ineffective at causing the sorts of changes necessary to stop this culture from killing the planet, there are at least four other problems with perceiving simple living as a political act (as opposed to living simply because that’s what you want to do). The first is that it’s predicated on the flawed notion that humans inevitably harm their landbase. Simple living as a political act consists solely of harm reduction, ignoring the fact that humans can help the Earth as well as harm it. We can rehabilitate streams, we can get rid of noxious invasives, we can remove dams, we can disrupt a political system tilted toward the rich as well as an extractive economic system, we can destroy the industrial economy that is destroying the real, physical world.

The second problem—and this is another big one—is that it incorrectly assigns blame to the individual (and most especially to individuals who are particularly powerless) instead of to those who actually wield power in this system and to the system itself. Kirkpatrick Sale again: “The whole individualist what-you-can-do-to-save-the-earth guilt trip is a myth. We, as individuals, are not creating the crises, and we can’t solve them.”

The third problem is that it accepts capitalism’s redefinition of us from citizens to consumers. By accepting this redefinition, we reduce our potential forms of resistance to consuming and not consuming. Citizens have a much wider range of available resistance tactics, including voting, not voting, running for office, pamphleting, boycotting, organizing, lobbying, protesting, and, when a government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we have the right to alter or abolish it.

The fourth problem is that the endpoint of the logic behind simple living as a political act is suicide. If every act within an industrial economy is destructive, and if we want to stop this destruction, and if we are unwilling (or unable) to question (much less destroy) the intellectual, moral, economic, and physical infrastructures that cause every act within an industrial economy to be destructive, then we can easily come to believe that we will cause the least destruction possible if we are dead.

The good news is that there are other options. We can follow the examples of brave activists who lived through the difficult times I mentioned—Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, antebellum United States—who did far more than manifest a form of moral purity; they actively opposed the injustices that surrounded them. We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.

© 2009 Orion

Derrick Jensen is an activist and the author of many books, most recently What We Leave Behind and Songs of the Dead.

The one thing Jensen forget to mention is the military responsibility contributing to environmental decay.

]]> http://www.lindsayjoyhamilton.com/blog/thought-provoking-essay-by-derrick-jensen/feed/ 0 http://www.lindsayjoyhamilton.com/blog/i-suppose-i-have-been-neglecting/ http://www.lindsayjoyhamilton.com/blog/i-suppose-i-have-been-neglecting/#comments Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:00:30 +0000 lindsayjoy http://www.lindsayjoyhamilton.com/blog/?p=750 this blog! My brother pointed out to me that I’ve been cheap on the blogs so I’m gonna make this one a good one.

Sunset at Wreck Beach

Its difficult in summer to stay tried and true to responsibilities. I’ve been disc golfing with Carson (his new obsession which helps deal with stress but I find it aggravating), practicing and gigging with my band Jackie Treehorn (July 11th Backstage Lounge is our next gig), and occasionally working for an decorative artist. Although its been some what relaxing, I’ve actually been quite stressed out. Work has been sparse, I’ve applied to a few job opportunities at galleries trying to pick up a part-time something or other, but alas, no success. I’m learning the true experience of an artist and that’s there is barely any work, all the work needs to be created by yourself. That is fine and dandy if you don’t have to pay rent. I’ve also wanted to have a studio space, which is to no avail. People in Vancouver are paying at least $400 for barely 100 square feet of room! What is that??? I can’t be bothered so I set up a makeshift studio at home and that will just have to do right now. I managed to find a cheap illustration table and I’ve got a few friends with spare rooms who have let me keep my larger works at their place. I also had a proposal accepted by a curator for a show at the end of the month (which I was excited to get working on) but I just got news that due to a lack of a space and that she is going to China or something, the show has been canceled. Yet another disappointment. *sigh*

I did attend an Aurastone workshop which may prove to be lucrative, at least as the finances go.  Here’s a quote from the website;

Aurastone™ workshops strive to provide decorative professionals with the necessary tools to remain at the forefront of the decorative finishing industry. In addition to learning cutting edge finishes, our students also discuss marketing, sales and estimating techniques.

Auracos™ understands that by taking an Aurastone™ workshop you are investing in your future and we are confident that our well rounded curriculums and energetic teaching style will help make each Aurastone™ workshop an informative and lucrative experience.

The stunning beauty and organic appeal of Aurastone™ finishes are simply breathtaking. Our professional team of instructors has combined their individual talents to achieve the most sought after finishes in the industry. We have combined our trade secrets and built a number of phenomenal workshop curriculums together with sound business and marketing lessons to ensure that each student who takes an Aurastone™ workshop will have a first class experience.  Auracos, llc sincerely cares about our students, their journey and their ultimate success as a decorative faux artist.

It was a great experience. I made 5 sample boards out of the deal.

Granite

Afghan Onyx

Marble

Travertine

and my favourite Lapis Lazuli

These are not real stone, they are made with Aurastone. They are used for counter tops, back splash, around bathtubs, floors and walls. I’m trying to see how I can use the product for art but I need some more practice before I come up with anything good. My boss, Evangelia, is the distributor of the product for all of Canada.

But honestly, I haven’t wanted to make anything. I’m either discouraged, or I just need a break from it, probably both. The funny thing is I have found myself writing prose, and I surprised myself and recently wrote a rap which will become part of Jackie Treehorn’s “Brain Juices” .  The influence of DistractIcon (Carson’s other band) and my fellow band mates, I think I have caught the writing bug. Here’s somethings I wrote the other day;

Please dreams, don’t leave me!

if you do I will be defeated

surrendered to letting youth sneak away without saying goodbye

(it sneaked off during a party while I was in the bathroom, just left without saying goodbye)

unfettered confidence, I evoke you!

but I can’t seem to get the chant right, or the words out,

or the right pair of jeans on.

Here’s another;

“The Great Tower of Expectation is crumbing in it’s foundation!” cries the anxious girl over the apathetic crowd.

No one listens to her.

In a moment of panic, the nervous Nelly collects the fallen foundation in the hem of her dress and attempts to replace the pieces upon the Great Tower. Precariously placed, the stones shift and tumble.

They fall down and build up around her feet. With each fallen piece, the anxiety in the girl heightens. She is dizzy and short of breath.

“Please! The tower is coming apart all around us. Help me rebuild Expectation!”

Despite her pleas, the passing public avoids the girl as the entropic debris builds around and beyond her shoulders trapping her at the spot.

There is no need for Expectation.

We cannot rise to see the top of the Tower.

What need do we have for such archaic monumental representations such as the Great Tower?

Let it fall and may the Anxious girl be crushed by the weight of her own Expectation.

I seem to like personification.

I will get my rap recorded and add a link on here. I need to practice a bit first, so it might be a while.