what am I trying to say?
I'm easily confused. I like to think of it as an endearing quirk to my personality. Or maybe if I weren't so self-critical, I would reclassify my confusion as my open-window-on-life (TM). I spend a lot of my time curious about why I think, the way I think. Or feel. Or see. Or don't at all. (So you can imagine the limitless patience of my friends and family.) I ask a lot of questions. Why I believe some things now, I never considered even a few months ago. Where things come from. How they got here. Why I can't remember some things and never forget others. If there will ever be enough time to do all of the things my imagination has on its bucket list.
And yet, despite this perpetual-question-feed, I know the only answer I can ever be certain of. Is that I'll never have one. The more information, time, learning I pile on, the more I realize, knowing is an illusion. When I was a child, I thought that if I did something bad, that I could fix it with prayers. When I realized god wasn't listening I started to wonder if this dude also camped out on the North Pole in toy-land. This evolved into a bitter hatred for Catholicism and certainty that malice was at the heart of all religion. As I began to question my sexual orientation, I also began to identify as an atheist. I was sure and I was angry. Time since then has helped loosen my grip on my anger and my certainty. I learned (some) about other religions. And I remembered some of the wonderful, benevolent lessons of Catholicism. I now affectionately use agnostic to describe my spiritual disposition (and attach it to all kinds of other dispositions as well; like when talking about a fancy technology, of course it's device-agnostic; or when referring to my meals, they too are calorie-agnostic). How I feel about religion now, is a good analogy for how I feel about most things. Neither good nor bad, agree and disagree, up and down.
I think it's this duality, this living of contiguous contrary understandings, that is so much a part of my work. So in my questioning, my intent is not to judge or determine or decide. I think all of my questions are tethered to each other like an endless chain. They're there so I can calibrate, consider, be conscious while all of the things around us are constantly in flux. For me, certainty is a word for an idea, not a reality.
It's also important that I recognize (and remind my self) that the questions are subjective and selective. When I question something, like an aspect of cultural conditioning—the American knot between pink and female—I'm choosing to call this out as something worth questioning. It is one tiny detail in the fabric of an enormous "culture". The frame I choose to put around this thing is a mix of my eyes and the random "out there eyes" I've consciously and unconsciously gathered. I may not know why some things I question and others I don't.
The work that comes out of this questioning, is often a reflection of the feelings that are difficult. The ones I'm trying to work through. Happiness, contentment, satisfaction, meaning. The work is part of my effort to find those things. The act in and of itself, the doing, the practicing, the work. Is my experience of happiness, contentment, satisfaction, meaning. Even in its pain. (Enter—contiguous contrary understanding.)
The resulting physical forms, are often an artifact of introspective doing. They're ways for me to process all of the stuff I can't make sense of with words. I think that's why it's so much easier for people outside of me to "get" what I'm doing, if we can have a conversation. And what I often tell them, is that our dialogue will end up in my work in some way, because it's become a part of my thinking. So just in that moment of talking, I don't know what the work is about, because it's being changed. Language isn't always a tool that helps me understand. Sometimes it can be like trying to catch a fly between two 40lb disc-weights that belong on the ends of a dumb bell. Not. Productive.