Hunger for food

– food fills you up –

food fills the hunger.

Now you are not hungry. Deny yourself food and you are empty, thus your mind becomes empty, and you feel full in some respects but endlessly, eternally, infinitely, empty. The act of filling is very important.

Humans, on some level, are aware of their own mortality. How quickly the seconds pass by. We fill our days to fill the hunger – hunger for purpose, dare I say control (when we are truly at the mercy of fate/time/space). Everyday is a constant competition with the previous days, be more PRODUCTIVE, do more THINGS, do THINGS, THINGS, THINGS, THINGS, THINGS. We’re hungry for THINGS.

Today I went to work and did THINGS, mindlessly trying to function as an ‘adult’ who is ‘alive.’ And then I came home and found myself lying on my brown carpet staring at a plastic bag on the floor. I just laid and laid and laid and stared and stared and stared. I felt Very Bad because I am supposed to be an artist and I should be making art, not staring at a plastic bag on my brown carpet. This feeling of ‘hunger’ kept rising up into my throat and breaking my heart and making me sweat. I’m hungry for success and purpose and experiences and I’ve committed to being an artist, right, so I must make art everyday and everyday I don’t make art just proves that I’m not really an artist but good god sometimes I just don’t want to make art and I don’t want to think about it and I don’t want to clean the bathroom or read a book or call a friend or be anything at all, SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO SIT ON YOUR BROWN CARPET AND STARE AT A PLASTIC BAG AND THAT’S THAT.

So, no. I have no art news to report for this week. I’m still preparing (AKA panicking) for my First Friday show on June 3rd, but there’s nothing else to say about that. I’ll figure that out in due time. When I get so hungry I can’t take it. And I collapse into the arms of creative visual expression. Hopefully soon.

~alicia