The one where I complain about grammar and wonder why I always lie to myself.
One of the ways I know I’m an artist is because I can simultaneously forgive plenty of grammatical errors in the people around me, while at the same time experiencing little short-circuiting twitches whenever people do things like use “whom” wrong.
They always defend it the same way by saying that it doesn’t matter. At which my mind always rebels, because I want to say it does matter. But then reality, whatever that is, gently reminds me that in spite of my belief that grammar is the basis of order and in spite of the frequent abuse of grammatical rules displayed by your populist in the street, that reality is still here anyway, just sort of carrying on.
So I believe that grammar is important, and at the same time I believe that it isn’t.
Because, as the man said, an artist is a sort of person who can hold two contradictory beliefs in their mind at the same time.
Although what I don’t know is if the man goes on to say how much of a loony that person has to be in order to do that. Fairly, is my guess.
That’s what it comes down to, really. How in love with reality are you? Being too in love with reality will guarantee you distance from reality. Or that’s what my old granny used to imply.
There’s two kinds of reality. There’s the reality of what you agree to cooperate with, and there’s the reality of what happens to you. Either way, everything depends on how invested you get. Getting too invested in some single vision of reality sets you up for heartbreak, because reality will only let you down in the end. Ask the last dude who taught Ptolemaic physics. He’ll tell you.
I’m not, you know, trying to be obscure. I’m trying to be clear. Since nobody ever asks what my point is, though, I figure I must be making sense. Stands to reason.
Anyway, I don’t know why I’m talking about that. It was because all of you acting all cool, like you’re not confused all the time, which is a complete lie. How can you not be confused all the time? How can you not struggle with confusion? Struggle with the perpetual disparity between the grin on your face that says everything’s fine, as it contradicts the roar against the basic state of irrationality which is all of us agreeing not to point out that we are all lying.
That’s how it is, isn’t it? Unless I’m missing something and there are people in the world who believe their own bullshit. As far as I can tell, most of us spend most of our time running away from what we say anyway. Away from what we say, so we don’t have to deal with it, and toward the next drink.
Why would we be so unapologetically in favor of avoiding any kind of self-reflection if we weren’t determined to distract ourselves from ourselves? I don’t think I ever will understand. That’s the whole point: not thinking about it. So I’ll never get it.
That’s why I know I’m an artist. There is nothing more certain than the fact that, in spite of what I might say about it, I am here, right now, and reality is somehow working, in spite of how many people couldn’t give a toss about communicating clearly. And at the same time as I am here there is nothing less certain than what it means to say that I am here.
So I know I’m an artist. I believe that every moment is a result of two simultaneous and contradictory truths, whatever the hell truth means.
I guess what I’m trying to say is be as blasé with your grammar as you like. I don’t mind.
Or…no, I mind a lot. I basically short-circuit every time I hear bad grammar. But at the same time, I don’t mind, because that’s how being a human being works. Life is one long episode of coping with the prolonged nervous breakdown that is being a member of a species that spends its time pretending to pretend to think between opportunities to get drunk.
