I was going to clean my studio today. Not that it's too big of a mess but it's not as efficient as I'd like my space to be. I'm at the point where I have to execute things utilizing one to three additional steps. My mind is generally several steps ahead of where my body is at any time. I'm an efficiency/execution junky. Art is as much about ideas as it is about execution. If you don't DO it, it never happened (or the opposite: if you've done it in your mind, it's done. Just ask Jimmy "sin-in-the-brain" Carter). But I do like having the drums set up if only to play a funky ass beat for 30 seconds (hit it n' quit it), but they're totally blocking access to several things (printers, monitor, VHS deck, storage selves, media archive, etc.). Oh well. I don't have the cancers, thank g-d, so I don't have to feel like I'm in such a huge rush all the time. I can take some of my own advice and breathe....I'm blessed like I'll never quite comprehend.
But looking around this place I decided I'm not touching a thing. Not today. Not right now. Cleaning this place is not on any schedule for the time being. This is evolution of how and why I work. From the American flag (photo 5) to the volcano thing (2) to the genuine Iraq combat boots (3) to all stuff I've been planning to mail to friends (4) to the drawings the B SOLD me this weekend (1), this is my world and my world is customize and has significant meaning. This is middlespace live; the real deal, the real world.
But looking around I got to thinking about how we all get so used to things. Granted, taken for, our possessions, our surroundings, our environments. Perhaps--aside from the internal combustion engine and coal power--our greatest human shortcoming is our blinder tendency. I am certain evolutionary theorist could provide meaning but I'm guessing that it is our curious and empirical nature to focus on finding out what's next, what's on the other side of the hill, damn the known, what's unknown.
Habituation. Just...getting so accustomed to certain things from mere presence and exposure or repetition or context expectation. Everyday situational habituation and message habituation. Situational habituation is the opposite of middlespace, where trees are missed because of forests and such. It's how people run new stoplights. It's why stopping to smell the roses is an anomaly of an ideal. It's the cognitive mapping and structures of our everyday existence; so "focused" on "important" things that so much fades into backgrounds. I'm convinced most of us miss all the good stuff.
Messages too. One can hear a message so often that the message becomes an internalized self-fulfilling prophecy (telling a child that they are smart, for example, may result in a child who believes he or she can and will be smart) or the message can become completely lost and discounted (when there is no reinforcement or evidence to support messages). OR BOTH.
And here is my point today: I'm told certain things frequently, we all are. Very positive things about some of my "abilities" have been disclosed to me for all of my life. But...have these messages shaped who I am and what I do? I mean, I shy away from praise and acclaim and completely discount much of what I hear in terms my ability. Even as a child I just figured all kids heard about 90+% the same shit from parents and educators. As an adult I just figured that people buttered you up to get things for themselves from you. But that's naive and jaded, respectively, as hell.
Where does message influence and message discount meet? Do they meet? Or are these exclusive events? I tired to graph it with axes labeled "Credibility" and "Frequency" (high and low, each) but that doesn't seem to capture what I'm not sure I'm trying to capture.
Maybe the producer in me is trying to understand how to motivate people to do their very best, most personally reflective work -AND- the creator in me is trying to understand when to believe and use feedback best.
Maybe I should just clean my studio.
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