Please forgive the spelling or grammar mistakes in this one. It was pretty much stream of consciousness typing, and I didn't want to publish it initially, but after writing it, I thought it could make a good post for me to re-read in the future for pondering.
Yesterday, I was trying to relive a fond memory, or at least trying to create a pleasant composition based on past memories and associations which I had found pleasurable. I found a concept art piece last week of a sort of space ship, but one which appeared to be a commuter or mass-transit low altitude vehicle, at least, that was what I imagined it could be. A bulky but functional sized vehicle, perhaps the size of 4 buses stacked 2 x 2 together. I loved it, and I could imagine it would exist, the boarding of it, the sitting down in the hard cushioned blue seats, the gray cold exterior, but crisp in the morning air outside, but smelling the filtered temperature controlled air inside, which obviously would attempt to smell clean, but would have the hollow wafting air of artificiality, and a hint of electricity and possibly even exhaust in it. Thinking about the 'for show' sections of the interior, with their modern minimalist solid paneled walls and florescent white ugly lights, as well as the dark mechanical underbelly areas underneath, and these contrasting visuals in the concept by Sparth ( https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/s960x960/14524377_770231409785393_7425291933892374974_o.jpg ) somehow were fused together on the exterior beautifully... Something about it reminded me of boarding a bus for a day trip, with the raised seats which feel like a mile above the road outside, OR more to the point of my immediate desire to return to the Baltic -- boarding the many large tour buses in the cold mornings... AND also of riding the double-decker train on NJ transit, which my sister and I got to experience while travelling to the New York Comic-Con yesterday.
I had my coffee. I had my crisp cloudy morning. I had my music, specifically "Sad Machine" by Porter Robinson, which reminded me of the Anime conventions Sarah and I used to go to, as well as Comic-Con, because of its synthetic sound, the robotic vocals, and the epic melody, and finally... I had the train. Upper floor, no less. While it was pleasant... something about it just didn't sync. The imagined hazy nature of the experience was... better than the actual experience. And it isn't to say I'm not grateful. It was wonderfully pleasant, and to tell you the truth, it was the highlight of my day... more on that later. But the key here was that I had a sort of... feeling, and atmosphere, which I yearned for. The EXPERIENCE. And, as rare in life as these things can be, I actually quite quickly, and even had planned... that very experience... minus the sci-fi alterations.
What was it about the experience that left me wanting?
It makes me wonder, if our lives aren't all about the destination. The culmination of preparation, or even the joys of HAVING the experiences we want. Our lives are about ... that feeling we wish for in our heads, keeping it sacred, imagining it, and I suppose REMEMBERing... that THOSE thoughts, those wishes are actually the pleasure. The joy. The anticipatory bliss.
But if this is the case, where the wanting is the good part. Then what am I to do about my current living situation and interests?
The Comic-Con itself was another one of those, 'omg, I'm going to be in bliss when I'm there'... but when I actually get there, it's not... as good. Maybe it was my mood or something, but I remember last time I went to Comic-Con. I loved getting my coffee from one of the vendors for $6.... and then wandering Artists Alley. This wasn't exactly what happened this time, but then again, I didn't intend for it to be the same. Instead of getting the coffee there, I bought it before we got on the train, and it wasn't Starbucks, it was WaWa, which was still good coffee... but that meant I didn't have it on the art-room floor... so I wandered instead with my achy shoulder-bag. Another difference was, I ran into Dan Luvisi last year, as well as a couple other unknown artists whom I actually was pleasantly surprised at having discovered. Not so this year. Dan wasn't even there, nor did I discover any artists which really spoke to me. I ended up wandering the place for the 8 or so hours we were there, in shoulder pain, tired legs, and a kind of 'bleh' melancholy at every geek thing I was seeing. I was ready to go home halfway through the day.
This of course made me question my own interest in even having gone there. If I could be in a room with over 3 hundred artists (even though most were comic panel or cover artists), other fans, my health, and access to all the advice in the field of professional art in the world... and not be happy or even excited as hell?.... what kind of artist am I?
Again, perhaps it's the imagination of the BEFORE which I find the most pleasurable... but that's like saying someone is on a Star Trek holodeck, actually experiencing something... and blind/immobile me only hearing about the experience. Is that enough? Is that what our satisfaction is supposed to be derived from? Imagination?
Well no, there is another component to this conundrum... and that is the UNKNOWN. The chance encounter, the pleasant discovery.
My fond memories of this experience... were derived from a few things. A) the song "Sad Machine" discovered accidentally sometime last year. Not even AT ComicCon or associated with anything to do with it. B) The accidental discovery of that concept art last week, which made me anticipate the very train-ride in the first place... and C) Last year's Comic-Con experience, when I wandered through Artist Alley with a cup of coffee, feeling on top of the world, and seeing art, which at the time interested me... However, the artist alley was a bummer for me this year, due to not finding anything or anyone, which and whom (quite literally) didn't speak to me.
Which makes me think it has nothing to do with imagination, but the joy of memory. Yes I IMAGINE what I would do eventually, but the real pleasure is in the combination of these factors swimming around my memory banks, issuing a feeling of joy as they spring up here and there.
Another example: I love coffee, and I love the Nespresso machine, but what joy does it provide me?... I don't necessarily like the taste of many of the pod-coffees, although sometimes I am pleasantly surprised... But what I love is the anticipation of it, really... the BEFORE.... after I finish a cup, I'm left wanting, but it's too late to have another, lest I'm ready to stay up all night. This... joy isn't necessarily built on a memory of joy, but the anticipation that I will actually be transported by the coffee, and while coffee does create a sort of high, which I find amplifies the joy of other situations, it never lasts, and I know this... So my addiction is kept to a controllable cup a day.
But what about the grander occasions of life... a wedding... maybe not the immediacy of having a child, or even directly after, since those are massive joyous times, or so I gather. Because it's all anticipatory. The wedding is perceived to be a blissful day where everything goes right and even God himself comes down to bless the marriage... Does the day itself not feel like a blur of yeah this is great.... everything IS perfect..... or not.... and I'm exhausted.... or the CHILD.... the baby has MASSIVE potential, and one wants to hold onto that thought ITSELF becomes a memory, and we spend our childs' lives maintaining that perfect potential in our heads... regardless of the drugs, promiscuity, or even murders a child may commit. Of course that is a bit extreme, but the principal still stands... we uphold the child of our heads because we LOVE them... we love the memory of imagining the potential of them. :P
Maybe some day, our experiences will just BE perfect without even a memory to usher them in... or maybe we're supposed to create new experiences every day, and true joy is found in the memory of those times... and we have to remember that those good times WERE the bliss... and can never be had again, at least in the same exact recipe'd way.
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