“Whenever you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

This is probably some of the best life advice I have ever come across.  I’m always pondering my experiences – how I could have done things different, and what life would be like if I had.  Always contemplating how I can reframe my reality to better myself as a man.  Reframing one’s reality is not an easy thing – but it is a powerful skill once developed.

I’m going to go ahead, take a big leap here, and declare that my upbringing was rather sheltered.  I might be tipped off by things like my dad altering toys to remove violent objects (I really only remember one…a green army car that *had* a gun on it), or my mother not letting me even watch the Simpsons – though addmitedly, the early seasons a bit more rowdy than the latter ones.  I listened to classical music, played the piano and then the violin, played soccer, and did my homework like a good little boy.  Though my academic success started going downhill relatively early in high school (in terms of grades), I don’t think I missed a single day until 2nd semester senior year.  You see, it just was not in my perception of reality to act beyond official boundaries.  My reality had been constructed out of relatively (with respect to this messed up world) mundane qualities.

After high school I went on to college – mostly because that’s what you do next right?  The flow chart would look like:  High School -> College -> Life.   If only I had realized that life isn’t a flow chart.  So onward to college I went, chosing to study whatever it was that I was already doing (math…what else would I chose?).  The truth was, I didn’t care – and I couldn’t see that.  I had entered a world completely separate from previous life and my severely boundaried reality couldn’t handle it.  More critically – and this is something I can only see now – is that I was unable to determine this at the time and therefore unable to take any action.  My disgust for a strictly standardized learning regiment – thoroughly backed up by faculty who didn’t care - quickly devolved into some form of mental collapse. 

**I should interject here, and say that there were a few teachers in high school who worked their asses off and cared harder than many of us deserved – and for them I am thankful for keeping my sanity and providing me a good foundation to reframe with**

On with the story shall we?  Some of you may know that I went to college for a semester and then took some time off.  Now you know why.  Not necessarily the nitty gritty, but the overaching sense of things.  Following my inevitable downfall, I had a pleasant period of mentally stagnant bliss.  Ok it probably wasn’t that nice, but I basically just let my brain reset.   Then, with much thanks to my parents, I started taking various classes (note: action).  I ended up taking pretty much a flavor of everything, not really knowing what I was doing, simply that I was sort of testing the water here and there to see which area had the perfect temperature for me.  I didn’t come to any sort of realization until I found myself working in a subject that had me so completely and utterly engrossed that I could spend 4 hours without realizing 4 minutes had passed.  *bing* Some kind of light goes on and its hovering over a sign pointing in two directions.  Actually for me, the light was only over one part of the sign – that particular moment was blindingly clear for me.  So I decided with absolutely crystal cognizance that I would go back to Reed (note: Action).

I could keep going on and on here, as I ended up latching onto this formula.  I would come across something I wanted to do, and because it fit with the way my brain functioned, I would just do it.  To put a nice shiney bow on the whole read:  I started to chose action as a driving force.

If you find yourself in a stagnant point in life, or if you cannot decide on something, consider this:  Place yourself on a fence and look at both sides.  Upon which side of the fence does action lie?  Always take that fork in the road.  It is always the things you don’t do in life which you regret.

So to bind everything together in the spirit of this blog, I need to make some reference to new orleans.  I could say many things about how people get stuck in ruts and refuse to step out of their boundaries blah blah blah.  All I am going to say is this:   Consider everything we have discussed in terms of New Orleans, why we go there, what we do there.  Put your life on one side of the fence, put new orleans on the other, and then ask me what this has to do with anything.

-JR

PS. You may be wondering about the openness of all this.  It’s because I’ve recently taken one of said forks, and have restructured my perception of reality.  You are all now in MY world.  Which means I can say whatever the hell I want with little repercussion (oh no! bad words in a church blog! who reads these things anyways?).  How fun.  I should say the fork is that I am applying to grad school for this fall.  It’s amazing what a change of reality can do.

How do you get people to think the way you do?  How do you get people to understand what you understand? 

I was introduced a long time ago to the power of story.  I did have a significant advantage in learning this:  listening to my mother preach every sunday for 18+ years.  After a  time, I stopped listening to the words she was saying and listened to how she was saying them and the way people reacted to those words.   I’ve found that the hidden power of communcation is not within the message, or the meaning, but the vehicle.  Not to say that what you say doesn’t make a difference, but defining factor will always be how you go about saying that.

This sort of thought process consumes me.  Especially with the work that I do.  Being an artist, my work is built around how it will be received by the one experiencing it.  If I don’t consider that as my primary focus when constructing my ideas, then the final product will completely lack in direction and power to change people’s perceptions.  Often times I don’t even need to consider the meaning of the things that I create so long as I take care to craft the effect of the outcome.  Many of my ideas are, on the surface, absolutely ridiculous and outlandish when taken to be understood in the realm of “reality.”

The thesis which I wrote and created at Reed was one of those challenges.  It attempted to explore the perceptual space between the image being presented and the viewer through action/reaction.  I also attempted to present and argue that art is stronger if its created for purposes other than its own (that is a very simplified explanation) – needless to say, I discovered that it is very difficult to convince people set in their opinions, knowledge, and beliefs.  I had to present, argue and defend my work against four professors who had, for four years, helped shape the path which I chose: people who, due to the nature of my mental development, can easily be viewed as just short of intellectual immortals – so highly placed upon the pedastal of acedemia that I felt like I was trying to move the clouds with my mind.

So that brings us back to the question…how do you get people to share your understanding?  Most people in this world are set in their ways – solid about their beliefs, opinions, ideas etc.  Resistant to change – a common trait in this world.  I’ve found that, if you attempt to directly affect their beliefs, they will simply increase their resistance to that change.  Bring them in – entice them with subtley rich imagery and create a mental space that they can relate to.  I think you will find that the most powerful lessons are those which pluck at your hearstrings and ring true with your own experiences.  Think about all the lectures, sermons and lessons you have experienced.  Which have had the greatest impact on the way you felt about something?

I’ve been contemplating how to bring more people to the same understanding that I have in regards to new orleans.  It is baffling to see that after so much time, the people of the city seem to have been forgotten.  Ive talked to a number of artists who attempt to make their work in regards to the disaster.  There are actually quite a lot of people out there doing what they can…but nothing seems to have a lasting effect.  It’s like trying to marr the face of a glacier with a rock – for a time, your impression will remain, but eventually the glacier will just form over it and there will be nothing.  I suppose thats how I see society…always temporarily accepting the fad and then reverting to the groves it has so mercilessly laid in the roads of time.  

To metaphorical?  too bad.

So how do we entice people into our story without them realizing it?

-JR