“A NEW AGE: A Mini-Manifesto” by Richard F. Yates (Holy Fool)

29 Dec. 2020… This shit bag on fire of a year is almost over. I realize that dates are arbitrary, that numbers were assigned for various reasons, and they are essentially fictional… But I’m also keenly aware that fiction can be extraordinarily useful. Whether metaphorical or believed as fact, stories and fictions can have MEANING for humans (and certain plants…and maybe a cat or two.)

So this is my story. A story that I’m telling myself.

A NEW YEAR – A NEW AGE – A NEW BEGINNING…

(It’s a very cool way to start a story, a nice---however arbitrary---point ZERO.)

Here are my plans for this NEW AGE:

(1.) Illness is unfortunate / “bad” / but a fact of life. The possibility of another global pandemic has been hammered home by the obvious current events. Within OUR family, we’ve experienced scares, more than scares, and glimpses into THE NOTHING which consumes us all. (If you believe in a different story than THE NOTHING, that’s your thing. It’s not the story that I tell myself. You leave me to my stories, and I’ll leave you to yours.)

What I’m going to DO in the NEW AGE is pay more attention to health. I’m going to work on eating better (watch the salt---which will kill me, if I eat too much). I’m also going to pay more attention to my MENTAL HEALTH, which is not good. I’m luckier than some, but I know now that I HAVE to take my pills and I will. I don’t like taking pills. I don’t like feeling tired, but the benefits outweigh the side-effects… So be it…

(2.) Grandkid. I have a granddaughter now, and she has given me reason to refocus and reassess my REASONING behind why I do what I do, what my ULTIMATE VALUES are built out of. I’m focusing quite a bit on TEACHING, on giving the kid positive experiences, and helping the family ENJOY THE MOMENTS that we are all living through. There is a certain amount of Zen and Taoist philosophies in my background, and I try to remember that it isn’t just the DESTINATION that’s important---the journey is also part of the experience.

Point of view---smell the flowers---painting the picture should be just as enjoyable as SELLING the picture… Get me??? (That’s right, I’m talking to YOU right now!) That brings us to…

(3.) Art is good… I’ve written a bunch about my stance on ART, but here’s the quick and dirty: (a) Everyone should do art because it is through our own creations that we share ourselves with the universe and (in a weird, non-religious, but slightly magical sense) our WORKS, our creations, the things that we DO are how we fight against THE NOTHING and secure a tiny bit of immortality. (b) Bad ART is just as good as good art because the PURPOSE of ART is some kind of personal communication, personal expression. The QUALITY (which is subjective*) is only important for COMMERCIAL OBJECTS. Art can be used for that, sure, and I have no trouble with people selling their art. That’s cool. But MAKING art and sharing it (through gifting or selling or whatever) is more important than commercial qualities…

*(A lot of commercial art bores me---silly clean lines, blah… Subjectivity and art go hand in hand. Look at Dubuffet, Cy Twombly, Basquiat---all MUSEUM QUALITY artists---but if you didn’t KNOW you were looking at “serious art,” you could mistake their work for amateur or insane or children’s work…)

(c) I’m going to try to push MORE people into art in the NEW AGE: Into making, into collecting, and into TRADING art. Keep these voices (encapsulated in various media) active and producing! (d) I’m going to slow my activity on ETH based NFT platforms---because it’s too fucking expensive. TOO EXPENSIVE!!!! I minted three pieces on a platform called Rarible, it cost me about $40.00 in “gas fees.” SHIT! I don’t have that kind of dough to throw around. I BOUGHT a piece that I really liked on Rarible (as an attempt to be supportive), and it cost me almost $50.00, with about $15.00 of that being gas fees… JEEBUS… I’m going to have to sell at least 4 or 5 pieces (without making any more) just to get back to where I was before these actions…. (e) In the NEW AGE (starting sometime between now and Jan. 1st, 2021), I’m going to abandon my NFT Showroom base collection, “Trash for Life (In the Haunted Honeycomb),” and start a NEW thing…essentially, it’s a new digital gallery. I haven’t come up with a name for this yet, but it represents a BREAK with my previous work and a refocus on COMMUNITY, COMMUNICATION, EXPRESSION, and… (f) I’m starting a new PHYSICAL + NFT action, in which I create physical 4 inch by 6 inch (or smaller), basically postcard size, works, which I will make into NFTs on NFT SHOWROOM, and when a collector BUYS one of these NFTs, I will throw the original work into an envelop and MAIL it to the buyer!!! (I didn’t come up with this, but I’m going to move into doing it more often! I love the idea of sending out physical pieces---small works that can be collected or traded easily…) I’m not sure if this means that the person who OWNS the NFT will then offer to mail the piece to the NEXT buyer, should they sell the piece---that’s out of my hands---but for the initial buyer, there is going to be a cool, EXTRA INSENTIVE to buy and to be the FIRST to buy. Of course, I’m still going to sell my stuff for cheap---I love for people to HAVE the stuff, but I have expenses…

(4.) For the last several years, I’ve been reading and then writing REVIEWS of the pieces that I read to share what I’m enjoying (or not) with folks… I love to read---I read for fun---but lately, the pressure of reviewing everything that I read has started to feel more like WORK than fun, so I’m putting The Read a Damn Book reviews on hold for a while…. This became a necessity when I realized that I was rereading books two or three times, trying to find something to WRITE about the books, and not just ENJOYING what I’m reading for what it is. Thus, I’m going back to reading just for fun, for ME, for a while. I might write up an occasional, “What I’ve been reading” post, if I find something that I want to talk about, but for now…just for me.

(5.) Meditate more. Calm that fucking head down…

(6.) Music (Playing): Make more frequent pirate radio shows. I love music. I love listening to music. I love SHARING music. I’m having a good time with those shows, and I have TWO or THREE dedicated listeners now, so I’m going to try to make these (PUNKTRONIC DISCO DIRGE PIRATE RADIO) shows more often!

(7.) “Music” (Making). I am NOT a musician. I love music. I love listening to music. But, unfortunately, I never learned how to compose music. I have a synthesizer now, and an okay microphone, and I’ve borrowed my daughter’s drum sequencer… So I’m going for it! I’ve even ordered an audio capture device to see if it helps the fidelity of my audio production. (Should be here today!)

(8.) Writing Fiction: Writing is HARD…DIFFICULT…but I’m good at it. It’s the focus of most of my education and my work. (I’m a writing tutor / editor…again…) HOWEVER, it takes WORK for readers to process language, especially in the ways that I USE my language, stretch it, experiment with it, play with it… I’m a literary contortionist, an anarchist, and (at times) a mad bomber---when it comes to WRITING… So it can take a lot of work to GET my creations, unlike my ART, which is more immediate, partially because it’s more rudimentary. Fewer people are willing to WORK to try to GET my written materials, and I understand that. Writing is hard, reading difficult material is hard, and most people want to read for FUN. I would argue that my work IS fun---absurd---if you read enough of it to get the JOKE, but it’s not as easy to grasp at a stick figure or colorful monsters…

But, however few folks engage, WORD ART (LITERATURE / FICTION) is the game that I play best, so I need to push myself to write a new story, at the VERY least, once-per-week. (Even though Satan has sent TWO demonic cats to my home to distract me and ruin my concentration! He’s so JEALOUS of me, that silly Beast, always trying to disrupt my FUN!!!)

YEP!!!! THAT’S THE NEW PLAN!!!

Now, I’m going to the pool! (We don’t have a pool---and it’s only a few degrees above freezing, but I’m trying to pretend that it’s hot outside, and I have a little pool with a slide and heated water and flotation devices and a professional bartender who can mix me a strawberry daiquiri while I float under the shade of a giant umbrella…like that one hotel we stayed at in Vegas that one time, when my younger daughter was bowling a Nationals competition…)

Later!!! Let the Winged Serpent flap his joyful noise in your direction!!!

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)

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