[Synthesis blog once again brings you the philosophy of Synthesis Weekly columnist Mad Bob. With no further adieu, we present to you Immaculate Infection.]

In My Hour of Darkness

I am suffering through a crisis of confidence.

More after the jump.

For years I have recognized a pattern to my inspiration; I go dormant for several months and then have spells in which I generate a multitude of concepts and ideas. It works out. In the creatively dormant periods between I can roll up my sleeves and get the work done. I’ve learned to trust myself and let the creativity flow when it will. That’s why I’m apprehensive right now. The cycle seems to have been broken and my creative well, at least for the time being, has dried up. It is an unpleasant feeling.
If there were a purpose to my life, I would submit that it is to create. It doesn’t matter to me what I create — the act of creation is all. I have been dogged in my desire to create over the last few years. I have suspended doubt and trusted in a “greater good;” that the ends will justify the means, and that what I am doing is actually, in fact, worthwhile.
I’m not convinced of that anymore. I am still creating: painting, writing this column, playing a bit of music. I do these things because I’ve always done them. I would imagine an athlete who plays a game might come to this kind of crossroads at some point. Realizing that you play a game for a living and that ultimately the game may have no greater meaning — that could be rough. I’m not saying the game has no greater meaning — maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But if the player’s mind decides the game has no greater meaning then where does that leave the player? Play on, or give up the game.
Dark days.
I’ve been thinking a lot about humans and the whole “why?” question. We’ve got a lander right now roving around on Mars, scooping up and analyzing dirt samples in order to try and determine whether or not life might possibly have existed. But so what if it has? Is Mars any better or worse off for that occurrence? Are we?
For so long humans barely survived. We were not the dominant life force on this planet. We lived ragged and scavenger-like for hundreds of thousands of years, lurking in caves, fleeing or fighting at the first sign of danger. Until around 10,000 years ago, when we finally started to unravel the mysteries of agriculture, humans were more of an anomaly than the rule. We are puny, slow and relatively weak compared with other animals. We can’t swim efficiently or fly at all. But we had a few evolutionary advantages. We evolved opposable thumbs, over-sized genitals and these big old domes lolling around atop our spindly spines and shoulders.
These big brains of ours are no picnic. Ask any woman who has ever given birth and then compare that death-defying process with every other animal on the planet. Then, even after we are born, after nine months gestating in the womb, we spend an additional nine months getting to a point where we can actually move around and put food into our own mouths. All this to grow these big brains.
And look what we’ve done with them. Half the world starves; we are constantly embroiled in manufactured ideological conflicts and a handful live in emerald palaces while the many toil endlessly until death. Peace seems impossibly far off, but why? On a fundamental level we all want the same things. But our energies and efforts are naturally diffused — we spread our essences too thin to make more than a superficial difference. We get ourselves fired up about this cause or the other and then we find like-minded people and we get them fired up too, but no one actually does anything. Then Lindsay Lohan’s boob pops out of her dress and it’s all over.
The cave. I think of it often. The shadows on the wall were reality, and then you leave the cave and the light is filled with noxious gas. The fat guy who lives in the alley litters his ice cream containers — it’s all just too on the nose. I keep waiting for Alan Thicke to jump out of the bushes and say, “Yeah, we really had you going there, you were starting to think this is life!”
Darkness. The older I get the better I can see at night and the warm Chico summers are just the thing for a born-again nocturnal. I will sit naked on the chaise lounge and stare open-mouthed up at the Heavens. Once and again I will wonder if there is life anywhere up there, but then I will shake myself out of it and instead concentrate on those swirling cosmic bodies, planets and supernovas, and realize that all of this “life” business is really beside the point.

Madbob@madbob.com

Tags: athlete | confidence | creativity flow | crossroads | dark days | desire | dirt | doubt | hour of darkness | inspiration | lander | mad Bob | multitude | painting | periods | philosophy | spells | time being | weekly columnist

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