I'm in a slump.

Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter: Stocholm, Sweden 1967


The state of art has been coming across as some perpetual movement that doesn't matter/isn't progressing upon itself.
Everything seems the same; someone begging to be heard and selling themselves short at the notion.
Not much excites me anymore, except for the tangible; the beauty you can touch and the smells you can taste.

I'm taking trips back to my roots, trying to cleanse myself of all this discount art;
Not just a secular following, but things which lend themselves to true emotion; pain, happiness, sorrow.
The train of people which lines up behind something new is astounding. People are just laying-in-wait for that "next sound" to latch on to, and personally, I've always been one of them, too.
But what you latch on to and the depth of it matters just as much, rather than bum rushing the door to buy in to cheap fads.
I find that the easiest art to create tends to spread itself like wildfire.

Human beings are confused by depth.
The intricacy of hard work or uncommon streams of thought perplex the everyday, "You behaving?" man.
That is why most decide to take the easy route through art.
Said figures (with a combination of right place, right time and a heavy stress on bravado), are at the top of the decision-making chain by way of their understanding the shallow puddle of universal appeal.

I'd like to stop this, but I wouldn't begin to know how.

Are we "purists" confined to a box that we've created for ourselves, or are we really set out there adrift on our little boats by way of being shunned by the commercial art world? I know personally, I try to protect the good things that I find, only by showing them to the people that will truly appreciate it. And, when I have given peeks at the deeper side of art to people who don't get it, well, THEY JUST DON'T GET IT.

None of this matters either way you slice it.
We're meant to do what makes us happy, and what makes us happy exists in varying degrees.
I can go in to the whole idea that those of us who search for that "higher stream" are troubled ourselves, and it's all just escapism on a finer level.
Your search for the finest wine, the best quality of cigar, the darkest niche of porn, or even stuffing that cheeseburger in your face every day at lunch is still escapism.
We're all exactly the same; it is only our decisions which make us the individual.

So, where do we go from here?