Blog Genesis

So here it is, my first blog. Or technically my second, I suppose. I just posted a poem, at what the computer fictitiously claimed was 3-something AM (EST). But that was the opening act. An introduction. My goal is to blog--is that a verb these days?--once a day, something I could do on my band's myspace (www.myspace.com/johenley) except that there I feel confined to musings related to Jo Henley. I enjoy doing so, but I guess I just have more to say than that, and so here I am.

I make no promises about this blog. My ramblings, my commentary on the world, my insights, my poems, my prose, my opinions--none of them may interest you in the slightest, in which case I urge you to find something else to do with your time. Life is far too short, even on those long summer days. But if you find yourself interested in what's on my mind, or bored and in need of a few minutes to kill, then you've come to the right place.

I started thinking about why some people out there are content to keep everything inside and whereas the rest of us must publicly share whatever is going on in our lives. Artists need an outlet. The rest of the world feels no desire to do so. This perplexes me.

I think of it this way: We all are cups. Some of us are humongous cups that never fill. Despite how much joy, anger, anxiety, worry, love, loss, heartache, fury, disappointment, depression, rebirth, etc. these folks feel, the need to share it with the world never occurs. It all sloshes around inside their limitless cups. None of these emotions ever spill over. An artist, however, is born a small cup. They fill with all of those same emotions, and for a time can contain them, bury them, hide them inside as they struggle to make sense of these roiling emotions. But there comes a time, often quickly, when these artists, these limited cups, reach their maximum capacity and it all comes poring out. Onto canvasses, sketchbooks, keyboards, wet clay, pianos, guitars, trombones, stages, and notebooks. Neither cup is better than the other; neither type of person is more important than the other. We can't have a world full of overflowing cups. What a boring world this would be if everyone wrote books, sang songs, played trumpet, painted, and sculpted. Just as it would be an awful place to live where everyone handled his or her emotions internally, logically, quietly. It's cliche, but yin-yang really is what keeps us all in balance.

I am a small cup. I do not know why; I was just born that way. I also have no idea why when my cup doth everfloweth I feel the need to share it with others--and here's the qualifier to that statement: sometimes. Sometimes my cup spills over and I write a song and record onto CD for all eternity and jump on stage and sing it for others, while other times I haven't the same need to let the whole world in on the condition of my heart, mind, and spirit, at any given moment. But generally speaking, I share my overflow, and this blog is just one more way to do so.

Perhaps this will be my last post; in a minute I'll go make myself some tea, pop a pair of waffles in the toaster, and when I return I may decide that, yes, my cup is prone to spillage, but this blog, this impersonal and cold blank white square on my computer screen, is not my idea of a warm and inviting medium. But I doubt it. As it says in my "profile," I loathe quiting. It is actually a weakness more than anything. Sometimes letting something go, giving up the ghost, is the only way to move forward, to retain one's sanity. I struggle with this. So chances are I will blog regularly. Every day? Doubtful. But as they say, shoot for the moon and at worst you'll land in the stars.

I would like to think that I always shoot for the moon.

If you read this before nightfall on Tuesday, November 4, you better have voted. This is no time for passivity. Get out there and vote. Vote for change. And since change does not come in the form of 72-year-old rich, white, cranky, irritable, albeit once-heroic, men, there really is only one intelligent choice come Tuesday.

And with that, having just alienated roughly 42 percent of my blog readership on Day One, I'm off to go make my tea and pop some waffles in the toaster.

Happy November 2!

Andy