What Gets You Through

Sometimes I forget what it was like to be a kid. Sometimes memories of childhood are all that I can think about. Life was so much more fun when we didn’t have to pay bills, worry about the world killing us, or focus on trying to find a partner for life.

Money went to ice-cream, germs were everywhere and nowhere, and cooties were there to persuade us to follow other worldly pursuits (such as giving Barbie a new hairdo or making GI Joe scale the baby kitchen). Mothers reminded us to run the hot bathwater and then add bubbles, to brush our teeth and wash our face every night and to ‘leave it better than you left it.’

But then…we became adults. Oftentimes we run a bath full of cold water and don’t remember to add any bubbles. Sometimes we’re too drunk and/or lazy to brush our teeth before bed, we wear our makeup to sleep so in the morning we don’t have to apply it again, and to leave a room is to leave a trail of ruin that screams of your presence.

‘Cause that’s just how it goes. All the time. We forget to care. The ‘now’ becomes the worries about our future–how are we going to live, how are we going to survive? What happened along the way to create such disillusionment?

We forget that in order to consciously live our lives. In order to remember who we are–we need to look at the most pristine and perfect part of ourselves–the time before the world tainted us and told us what the rules were.

We need to sit down and reminiscence–because sometimes reclaiming our childhood is the only way we’re going to make it.

Post your favorite memory of your childhood. What do you remember of your unpolluted child-like wonder?

Art is a Vision–Let it be Your Guide

Today’s Bramble is based on a rant. Just a rant of seemingly no importance: but to this completely objective observer–it friggin’ matters:

There are two types of artists; most of us, and few of us. Somehow–that’s how the world branches.

We all claim we live to create, but most of us will do what’s been done before. While there is no shame, but great skill in that, there is oftentimes a lack of creativity in borrowing or “revitalizing” the works of those great artists who dared to dream before us. In this, there comes a time when we borrow enough to make our living unfaithfully. We shamelessly use and re-create what another has worked hard to make unique and different; the call it our own, our “masterpiece.”

But this should be a true artist’s worst fear; to become famous with an artwork which did not come from from their own personal imaginings.

For whatever the reasons: personal gain, professional standing, to earn favor, or the prove one’s talent…to be leashed to a style of art that is not one’s own is bottom rung for any artistry. But–some artists are content with this; and do not esteem to drive above to any place of personal art. To do that, would be to open your own art to another’s skepticism, critique and censure. and that is a world that few can bear.

But that–that is where the true artists lie. Where the imagined and the fuel of life meet. Where the brain propels the hand to skew perception and introduce another faucet of thought.

The world is full of two different types of artists. Who will you be?

Work, Play & all that Dangerous Stuff that Makes Life Great

My daily bramble hasn’t been so daily, and that’s mostly because life is a crazy kaleidoscope of never-ending crap–all day long.
It might not seem that way after a good honest days toil, but nevertheless it’s true. If you end up not getting all the ‘to do’ tasks that need doing…it’s going to be a bad, bad day on the next go around.

I didn’t really realize that until I got into college you see, here it’s an extremely delicate balance of work, play, and homework.
For example:

A) If you are an above reproach student, completing your work to the best of your ability should be time consuming but not daunting. Your over-the-top work has enough time to be both created and finished in a timely manner. But if you’re average–like the majority of the students in this nation–you focus more on the social aspect of things, and your schoolwork can suffer for that.

B) The same can be said for work; sure, you’ve given a certain amount of in-house time to complete your various tasks and ‘assignments’ but in the end, if you don’t get your jobs done for said day, you end up taking things home with you. That’s just how it goes.

Now play, for most people–fits into the cracks of time you have between those segments of life: easily labelled section A and section B.
These of course can include the most popular of activities: camping or hiking some god-awfully tall mountain, paddling around in potentially shark-infested waters, sharing some fine outback cuisine with your uncle Jeremiah and aunt Persephone & singing some drunk karaoke with your equally non-sober friends until 3 in the morning.
But these, my friends, all lie down the road most travelled.
For if you show up to either college or work at 8 the next morning wearing yesterday’s clothes and smelling of that eighth shot…

You eyeballs will burst into flame.