I recall speaking with mutual friends at length about the nature and breadth of art.  Not solely, “What is art” or “Where does art begin or end”, but rather, “Who makes art”. 

I recall rejecting the use of “artist” to describe myself, not because I’m some “post-art” artist or because I want to be enigmatic; but because I was, and still am, confused as to the meaning of “art”.

Does the artist bring life to something otherwise devoid of beauty or aesthetic value?  Then what is Dada? 

Does the artist define and make relevant our times?  Then where does the man obsessed with the essence of all art belong?

Am I an artist for merely taking what others have made before me and recasting it my own?  One possibility presented to me was that I am an artist solely because someone believes me to be so.  Am I someone other than myself, therefore, as someone invariably believes so?  Is art so inconcrete that it must defined by special “rules”, then?

I’m reminded that life itself is a painting, a beautiful one made by our own hand.  We choose to draw what we please;  so said Hesse.

But I wonder, then, is it because life is so well described by art that we are left desperately wondering what it’s all about?

I suppose that life ultimately means the same as art: *ot****

You want to talk about legacies, and the potential to leave something behind?

Yeah.

You’re going to want to live long enough to put something down on paper.

And what should I put down, exactly?

Anything; everything.

It was with those words that the Doctor eased my thoughts, and even the strain that such thoughts were having on my body; I was in so much pain from being alone. Even when he was there, the room never filled with warm breath enough to give my body the illusion that another human being was there and comforting me, and, also, it took a long time to get what he was saying, in general. He wasn’t there to prod a soon to be corpse. It was once said that, “philosophy is a preparation for death”. It was after the Dr. Austra related godliness and loneliness that I realized where I had been for the last month, and were I could be in the next few days, or weeks, or months, or years, or decades that I realized the veil of ignorance had lifted. I could die (I was mortal), and what more could I do, bedridden, than to try and focus my mind on what my mind hadn’t been. I was in a golden opportunity to refocus how I saw the world, as there was the potential to never see it again. I spent the next few days starting at the core by re-evaluating myself, and the actions that I had allowed to represent me, and how the people around me played a role, and how the people I used to blame for certain things had just as much responsibility as I. And I’d like to note, the responsibility that began to pile up on my conscious as I realized my role in the events of my life did scare, but it rejuvenated me. I felt like I did actually have something to do, and hone, within my life. It took loneliness to draw out purpose. That is all.

So what if you can’t help yourself.

What if you can’t?

Who can you call in the dead of night if you need someone to help you?

Are you deaf, boy?

I’m just asking a legitimate question-

Then you are dumb, and should not speak.

It’s a legi-

Don’t try and make this into an issue of legitimacy. I made it clear to you already, so let me ask you, then: Why would you need to call someone?

For help-

Then why not just call opium?

But you told me the opium was null. You told me the opium was really me, right? You told me it was all me!

That I did.

Fuck, I get it.

What is it then?

Don’t you already know?

It’s nice to hear my own thoughts sometimes.

This isn’t your thought, jackass. This is my thought.

Oh is it now? What makes that so?

Because I’m owning this thought. This thought is mine.

What lets you do that?

Me.

Exactly. You are first, boy. You come first. Look to yourself first. Only then can you take the next step.

Which is?

To extend yourself to others.

But I thought you said that was a bad thing.

I thought you said you had your own thought.

Wait, no. Backup-

How far?

Don’t be an asshole.

With all these vulgarities, you seem like the one spouting shit; the real asshole.

Just explain yourself.

You could have found a much nicer way of requesting that, but out of the kindness of my own heart, let me explain.

Please.

Just think of that wording: out of the kindness of my own heart. Think of how we humbly approach certain situations; how we have to humble ourselves to approach royalty, or our superiors. See, it wouldn’t work if we drew humility from those we are expected to be humble towards. Why? Because we couldn’t. In a Western ideal, they don’t have the humility, as they don’t need it; they have the higher ground, the higher intellect, the greater muscle. So if we were to try and draw anything from them, it would be a superiority complex. And such an act, such an emulation would only result in a conflict-

And?

And so, the humility to approach these titans has to come from within us. I said earlier that it is wrong and dangerous to draw something to you, particularly from an inanimate object.  Do not become the extension of the things, people included, around you. Do not be defined by what you consume, both externally and internally. You define what you consume, and what you surround yourself with, first and foremost. Then all those things around you, people included, reinforce you. Better yet: if you lose the things around you, you are not weakened; you have not lost what you are. You are you! The things around you then become a reflection of you, because you said so, and not a mirrored effect.

I’m pretty sure not everyone else sees things this way.

Meaning?

Its common knowledge, a common understanding I guess, that we are here to be defined by what we surround ourselves with.

So I am to see you, surrounded by aspirin, and vitamin bottles and assume you are healthy?

I don’t know really.

Well until you know, let me make something clear. To hell with what is interpreted. To hell with what is drawn from the simply seen. As I’ve been telling you, do not be defined by the things around you; you need to extend yourself upon those things, not the other way around. Things include perceptions of you. Command them, boy.

I have a name.

Well are you going to extend it to me, or should I just extend boy to you because I am extending myself upon you?

It’s-

I could care less.

Look, I don’t expect you so just understand everything. Clearly you’re new to a lot of this, and there has been a lot that has changed since your times, so I will do my best to describe for you what I feel.

Good, because you’ve been doing a pretty bad job until, hopefully, now.

Ok. (deep breath) I’m sick.

I can see that.

And none of the doctors around here know what is wrong with me.

With your body?

Yes, with my body- wait, what do you mean, “with my body?”

Just continue.

And so I’m left with limited options, here, while I wait to either get better or die.

Well, at least you’re clearly sane.

What?

Continue.

Fine- I mean, I just feel like I need something more than what I have right now. (chuckles) I am just… drained so many ways, you know? I mean, do you see these bottles on my desk? Aspirin, vitamin C, vitamin B. That is all I have, just these three little bottles.

For someone as medically ignorant as I, your arsenal seems suitable for your condition.

Suitable? You think this is the apex of western medicine at this time?

I understand doctors now have the ability to move hearts from one human being to another.

Medically ignorant?

I did say ‘someone as medicaly ignorant as I’, so yes, medically ignorant.

So with that degree of ignorance, do you honestly think this all I should have to tend myself with? I mean, you’ve been watching me for a few days now.

All I’ve been watching is you drifting in and out of conciousness.

Have you been checking my thermometer readings?

I can’t say I have.

Yeah, well this isn’t easy.

What isn’t easy?

What I feel! This whole experience, I mean. It isn’t easy. And, I’m not even just talking about the physical nature of what I am going through right now. I just want something to help…no…to curb the psychosis that brewing behind this.

This?

This physical ailment.

And now this psychosis?

Yeah!

Oh-ho! Now it’s a psychiatric problem?-

I can’t sleep enough and I can’t stay awake enough to then warrant good sleep.

Let me get my cigar and my vials of cocaine-

I can’t eat; I’m hungry. The vitamin B tablets keep we awake just enough for a few hours to maintain my inbox and facebook. The vitamin C tablets spike my fever, and in my attempts to subside the actual fever, I can’t even take a goddamned aspirin without getting a seizure-

Then what is it you want? I honestly can’t imagine anything beyond it.

You’re kidding me right?

Continue.

Well, there are a lot of options-

What is it you want, then?

Something opiate based.

Opium! (chuckles) I guess it makes sense now. In such a haste you seek something to drag you along, correct? Have you sought these opiate-based life-aids before?

What do you mean?

Of all the modern medical options available to you, the first thing to cross your mind, or at least the parameters of what you chose to express to me, was opium.

And?

It appears to me that you just want something to drag you to, and through, either death or healing.

Everything drags you along.

Really, then those aspirins and vitamins tablets do too? Then it seems that you dont even have a problem.

You aren’t helping.

Neither would the opium.

What do you mean? With it, I could just sleep through the next few days, weeks, months, or however-the-fuck-long it would take to get better.

Then you seek something to alter the reality of time before you?

I guess so.

And what would that do?

What would it do? It would make this hell a little more comfortable.

Then it is comfort that you seek.

Does it matter?

Always. Everything you seek, and everything you use to find it are important things to understand.

Well-

Let me finish that for you. You have ‘nothing’, apparently, and you seek comfort, correct?

Sure.

Then where does your nothing start?

The fact that I don’t have anything to make me comfortable. That’s where my nothing starts.

Well, allow me to let you in on a little secret: pains, joys, complexities such as frustrations, ecstasies and, even their integrations are all within yourself-

-I don’t think I’m made out of opium-

-And it is you at the end of the day, or as you awaken, or as you eat eggs in the morning or a glass of water at midday or a beer with a comrade, or vitamin B, C, K tablets, or whether or not you’ve worked in the hot sun for the entirety of the day, or had found yourself in and out of  seizures, or even if you spent your day thrusting about between the loins of another human being, it is you that will invoke these emotions.

Chemistry would say otherwise.

Chemistry can only do as much as you let it, and you can only do as much as you master your chemistry. What if I conditioned myself to be disgusted by a woman’s pheromones.

What-

I did.

What?

Let’s return to you. The opiates aren’t full of joy and lull, neither is alcohol, or sexual exhaustion from the act. You are truly the master of your own reality as it is you who puts joy, or whatever feeling you extend to it, into opium. So, both the start and end of it all is up to you. Will you transpose your emotions to inanimate objects about you as the weakling and fool do, or will you become the librarian of your own experience, cataloging and understanding the etymologies of your own complexities and then extending those definitions to those things around you? That choice is yours.

Well shit.

Well what?

I think I chose to-

Don’t tell me, I’m not interested.

And it all started with a question, really. A question I never expected to ask, and a question I never expected to be answered, as rarely are questions that are screamed into the death of night ever answered by something beyond the frantic rustling of comforters from the room next to you.

But that night, I didn’t even hear bedding rustling; just the clear voice of a clear thinker come to answer the question I posed as the night clenched its chest and spat towards to the sunrise. It was the voice of a man I know (now) is dead, as I saw his grave this summer. I never knew his name until now, but his thoughts rang through my head for months and committed me to a series of actions which have clearly led to the betterment of my life.

His last name was Austra, and he was a doctor of education. During his undergraduate career, he studied German philosophy and pursued higher forms of education to permit him to spread the totality of German thought to young minds.

I don’t know where he has been my whole life, or where he went after August 2010, but I know he is dead, and I still thank him for everything he offered to me.

This is for you, Dr. Austra, and these are your imprisoned breaths, your gaol eyer.