I'm no longer an artist, I think. If there were an official ministry that took note of these things, it'd probably be on record by now.

Nothing inspires me anymore. All this empiricism is bringing me down, and yet for some reason I embrace it. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment (or a sadistic sort of morale plague), but there's this inherent rightness in logic that I can't seem to turn away from. Even when I attempt art -- "art" as a conscious effort ("Let's create art!") -- it comes off as pretentious.

Art feels pretentious. Questioning art feels pretentious. Both the left and the right feel pretentious, for different reasons. Fuck, even the concept of blogging is pretentious to some extent. Should I just sod the second-guessing altogether? It's a part of my life's methodology, you see, although perhaps I'm just jaded.

Then again, maybe the very aesthetic of logic and causality appeals to my artistic sense of beauty -- science as the grandest work of art and all that. It's either a) terribly conceited of humanity for applying a paltry human concept like art (however all-encompassing within human culture it may be) to such a wide scope, or b) terribly assumptive of us to assume that a greater power is at work sculpting these things to Its own artistic fancy. Still, on the surface it's a very attractive reconciliation.

Can an artist disbelieve in such things as altruism, love, and the soul? Not out of experience or lack of evidence, but rather a simple working knowledge of human nature? As an artist, I feel obligated to romanticism. As myself, I feel given to logic.

I convinced a friend recently of how paying attention to the man behind the curtains reveals the tawdry logical processes at work that drive such things as altruism, love, and other basic human emotions. I explained how these nebulous, grandiose processes could be broken down into chemicals and numbers, putting us in touch with a greater understanding of how the world works. I'm fine now, so I expected her to be fine, too. She waxed suicidal, for a time.

A morale plague, as I said before.

And then, I asked myself... "She's not okay. Am I? Have I simply desensitised myself to this life? How healthy has it left me?" In a moment of hopeless introspection, I asked my friend if I was even human. She told me that in many ways, I was not. I'm inclined to agree. In a bitter sort of irony, I dream of a transhumanistic future. In my case, would it be as simple as placing an organic robotic mind within a bionic shell?

But then... Do I even create art anymore? Do I even feel art? No? Well, I suppose that solves that.

---

Bah. Blogs are meant to be more petty than this, I think. Um... The Burger King games for the Xbox are surprisingly fun. At $3.99, you can't go wrong. That is all.

This past Saturday/Sunday (about a week ago), Brian and I camped out with Devin in front of Target for five hours (4 am to 9 am) so that Devin could purchase a Nintendo Wii. The air was cold, the sidewalk was cold, my ass was cold, and I'd only slept two hours before spending 14 or so at the local cyber cafe, but my laptop and a very generous donation of leftover Mountain Dew: Code Red that some guy named Andrew had previously brought to a renaissance faire helped me through the night.

The first 60 people in line got a Wii. Devin was 58 and our new friend Andrew was 59. I felt a little bad about depriving the large families with many small children behind us of Nintendous glory, but war is Hell. I was, however, a bit amused that after waiting four hours, we got one just as well as our friends Justin and Rusty, who were tenth or so in line and had been waiting for twelve hours.

I haven't heard from Devin very much since then, save a few scattered and maniacal utterances that went something like, "Sooooo coool." I assumed they were words, but then, they might have just been the sounds of excess caffeine fumes escaping from his corpse. Either way, I'll mark it off as points in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess's favour.


On an off note, if I had enough money to buy a PS3, I'd buy a Wii and a 360 instead. Sony has really screwed up this time.

If I was a good and proper artist who had ambition to do things, this would be another deviation. But instead, I'm a do-nothing slacker who piles up a tremendous "to-do" list in his head and never touches it and, for the most part, barely even thinks of himself as an "artist" anymore. Those two are probably related, actually.

So instead, here - have a journal entry.

Change is good. The old entry had to go; it was filling the place with bad vibes. Bad juju.

I hate chain posts like I love banana nut muffins. And I loves me some banana nut muffins, so you know I've gotta -hate- chain posts like the devil-seed they are.