Meta-Exhaustion
Age has replaced writing about what I have learned
with writing about whether learning is possible.
One paper about that should have been enough
One suggestion of solipsism should be effective too but
people keep telling me my brain is in a jar,
keep making me write that I don’t know anything.
In the bathroom parlor of my stain-glass pseudo gothic revival church,
there were two mirrors facing each other. I would wait until the sermon
to pee. And then I’d stand there in the parlor and enjoy what in child’s time
felt like days and may have been eight minutes of staring at myself and
my other self and my other other self and well you get the image(s).
But that kind of thing has messed with my head.
It is one thing to stare into the abyss for a minute or eight but to stare infinitely
into infinity is just exhausting. I’d like to know something again but the world
has fallen away and all there are are dueling mirrors.
Here is the idea. Ellen Dissanayake in her essay "Very Like Art: Self-Taught Art from an Ethological Perspective" argues self-taught art is something that was evolutionarily selected for not because of its ability to attract mates to the creator but because art once served as a vehicle for uniting communities and united communities were more likely to survive (Dissanayake). In these communities that practiced art-making, the time, energy, and creativity put into the creation of art reflected how much people cared about the community or at least the event or deity the people were making the art for and the act of creating extravagant art mobilized and united communities (Dissanayake).
The internet is often focused on the individual. When I put the text of my facebook page into wordle "Jessica" "Suzanne" and "Stokes" were some of the most prominent words displayed.
Nick and I want to create a website focused on the creation of communal or collaborative art. In a community where name is not important.
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