Here I am in the wilds of Alabama feeling more inspired than I’ve felt in a long time. Maybe it’s because the town I’m in is so small. For example, I feel like I could make a bad t-shirt and it would be okay. I also feel like I could do any drawing project and it would be well received. That’s a sounds a little like I’m disregarding the taste of the locals but in this case, it feels like the locals would just like a bit of stimulation or something out of the ordinary.
I come here and feel like I can think about life, but this place does not look like or work like my life and after I leave it will be funny to try to fit the logic of this town and time into my life back in Pittsburgh, PA. Maybe that’s why I can think about life here: this is certainly not my life…but it could be! And so suddenly my life feels a little fragile and mutable and that’s exciting.
Pittsburgh is routine for me. I feel like I know who I am there and that makes it hard to think about who I’d like to be. I am a tool box that knows its contents.
The brain of a tool box that only takes inventory of it’s own contents at times.
“Hum, let’s see, I contain a hammer, a wrench, a measuring tape….”
So your brain starts thinking it can only make things with the stuff it contains.
or
in my case, (zoom out from the analogy) I start thinking only in terms of affecting the world around me in the city I live in (which I’ve officially decided is small) and I start thinking of things to do, projects or work, that only involves the institutions right in front of me or the organizations right in front of me. I think this is only natural in some ways, your body and brain adapting to your location, but I also think it can be so stifling sometimes that you just need a change of scenery so you can have a new idea.
Why do I feel entitled to this journal-esque blog entry? Well because I do. In the place I’m in right now everything closes down at 7pm and if you don’t have
daydreaming and rambling then you don’t have very much at all.
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