Pointless Ramblings That Maybe Aren't So Pointless?

A Story by D-Wizzel

The question mark is intentional. And they should have an option for things that aren't stories or poems, but like just flow of thought BS. Wrote this at like one in the morning, so expect nothing.

I sort of feel like writing, but what to write about? I do have things that would benefit from work, undoubtedly. A novel. A web series. And, really, just various ideas I’ve thrown around for ages. But none of those seem fun. No. I just monologued to myself for a good fifteen minutes, weird as that may be to some. Yes, I talk to myself. And I know you do too. We all do. Whether it’s an outer or inner conversation, we all talk to ourselves. It’s how we make sense of the world. Or at least one mechanism we have for it.

And so there I was, talking to myself when I perhaps stumbled upon a ridiculous observation. One of no true importance, nor even all that interesting, but one that started me down a line of logic that is, on some level, interesting. The observation that a fundamental aspect of everything is a line. Again, not that fascinating, nor novel, nor eye-opening. Just sort of obvious, I think. But nonetheless a catalyst.

And so, I thought about art. It is, after all, a rather important aspect of that. Everything in art is made up of lines, after all. Even pointillism is simply the division of lines into small dots. Sort of like an extremely detailed connect the points. Art, I’ve come to understand, is a journey more than a destination. It tends to ask more questions than it answers. It’s sort of science for artists. We experiment, we hypothesize, we observe, we quantify. While science deals with laws and theories, however, we deal with deeper aspects. Who we are. Why we’re here. The nature of emotion. The nature of sapience. What it means to be a person. Morality.

Art is how we explore these concepts and many more. Art is a lens to temporarily understand the perspectives of other people. And through that, art sort of becomes a distilled version or reality, down to its most basic elements. We cut out the fluff. We cut out the niceties and the small talk, and we focus on what matters, what’s important. Of course, what matters to you and I will be different. Hence each distilled reality an artist creates is simultaneously a way to see through their eyes, to stand in their shoes, and hopefully come away understanding something new.

Now, this becomes more complicated with movies or games, or anything in which multiple people work on it. Unless you’re a true auteur, you’ll usually have someone edit your movie, someone else write it, and someone else direct it. So, whose shoes are you stepping into then? No ones. Or perhaps everyone’s. Or perhaps the director. Or the cameraman. Or the writer. Or a movie such as that is a cynical production made for business and business only and therefore doesn’t qualify as art.

But then what makes art art? An age-old question. Either people simply say everything is art, which makes art a pointless word, or they say if it makes you feel, then it’s art. And perhaps the latter is true. Perhaps all that is required for something to be art is for it to make you feel something. Anything. But I’ve also found the answer be far too broad and unsatisfying. Perhaps it’s the left side of my brain that feels that way, that’s telling me that an answer so imprecise is not enough. Or perhaps the definition just truly is disappointing. I think art is better defined, not just by a person’s experience taking in the art, but also a person’s experience while making the art. Both perspectives should be taken into account, I think.

But, I don’t know. Something feels wrong about quantifying art. As if the very act of quantifying art devalues it. It is maybe best left as an abstract concept, as a vague idea floating in the back of our minds. All we need know, I suppose, is that it exists, and we tend to know it when we see it.

Then I went to love. I’m not sure the bridge I crossed, but it was crossed, and there I was. The idea of love floating around in my head. And love is interesting to me. On one hand, it’s pure happiness and unadulterated ecstasy. And on the other, it’s misery and loathing. Cynical perhaps, but no less true for it. Love is great… When it’s reciprocated. Love that flows one way is endlessly painful. Often you might think if only they knew you, if only they gave you chance they’d love you. Yet you never think that maybe if you did get to know them, you’d instantly fall out of love. You’d realize you loved the idea of the person, the idea of the relationship, and nothing more. You fell in love with a reflection, not the person standing in front of the mirror.

Love often seems to be feelings you wished you never had, and feelings you wished they always had. And yet we are drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. We yearn for it like nothing else. We need it.

And so that lead me to happiness. So many people latch their happiness onto others. What I mean is they need another person there to make them happy, that without an external person, they can’t find happiness. See, people seem to rarely think to look within to find joy. We spend so many years with our eyes constantly locked outwards we forget that there’s something inside of us, that we’re a person that we need to meet and get to know and understand. A simple lack of self-reflection lends itself to a shaky existence. When the foundations of who you are have never been surveyed and certified safe, how do you know that they are?

Resistance to change is a dangerous thing, and I think that comes from that foundationally unsafe existence. The fear that any movement will cause everything to come crashing down on top of you. I’ve always found happiness comes from a few things. Understanding yourself. Understanding the world is chaotic as much as it is ordered. Understanding that things will change, and that bad situations don’t last forever, nor do good ones, and allowing that change to happen. And I mean truly understanding these things, locking them into the very core of your being, and never, for one moment, forgetting them. Simple.

Not to say happiness is therefore easy. Truly understanding something takes time, takes effort. It’s difficult. But it’s important. And while two of those things are constant, one of them isn’t. Who you are is always changes. We are simply memories living in a future conciseness (not my line), a consciousness that is in all likelihood vastly different from us. A consciousness with far more experience and knowledge and wisdom, simply one that is labeled the same name.

And so, understanding change now becomes a vital part of understanding yourself. And change comes from chaos. So, the three pillars, let’s call them, are really all predicated on the fine line between chaos and order, that little line in the Taijitu, the Yin and Yang symbol. With no chaos, no progress happens. But with no order, still no progress happens. Life is a balance, between these two states, and it is in understanding that balance that one can find happiness.

Or maybe I’m talking out of my a*s. I don’t know. Perhaps you got something out of this. Perhaps you didn’t. Either way, you’ve read through the unstructured ramblings of someone on a journey of discovery for himself, and so decided to write this and see what he may find. There was more about the line that I perhaps would’ve liked to talk about, but alas here we are at the end of the unordered ideas of some guy on the internet who knows as much as the next guy. It’s interesting. I never like my writing as much as I like the way I said it in my mind, and yet for other people to experience, I have to write it down. Not quite a paradox, just a disappointment. Anyways, I’m done now. Have a good day. Night. Evening. What time is it? 1:18 am? Ah, then good morning.

Also, I’m not proofreading this, so…