thanks for making me write it down

here are things i wrote down while on my cruise (in chronological order)"pity and shame are the two extremes of pride" - there were alot of people on the boat who were very rich, and who didnt like .... well anything. At lunch one day i sat with these people who had a house in manhattan, and london, and florida, and they were talking shit on these fat people who had been gorging themselves, and the one person was like i feel so bad for them and the other was like they were so gross and i thought "you both are assholes, just in different ways." ive been working with being humble recently, and of course along with that the ability to love people for who they are, as equals. The pastor man with the tattoos said yesterday 'if your head is close enough to the ground, youll never know (or care, i might add) when people are disrespecting you." and i thought that was excellent. close to the ground meaning the level playing field, 'in it', as it were.

"love is either being blind to the facts or having faith in nothing ever going wrong. This is not to say that there is always something wrong, but that's just because that's nothing we like to say." I came up with what i think is a good solution, at least one that made me feel good, which comes at the end.this is chronological, after all.

"....but this isn't true either. Some art speaks without ever speaking of anything at all. Some words are only available when they are being used, when they are being heard in your ears, seen in your eyes - there is no need for you to say 'this is how it is' because it does not matter how it is, only that it IS, and you know it, and I know it. and we know it. and it is."thinking about storytelling in art, making a statement, beauty, believing in this shit. next to these in my sketchbook is a picture of a man in full terrorist garb (scarf over heaf, AK on his shoulder) sitting in a strip club, watching a naked lady. I think i am going to paint this next. because it will be fun.

"i think to mysel 'but what do i know?' and the answer is that I do not know much at all"

and lastly, from my moleskin, which is almost full, on the final day at sea, when the sun was setting over top of the water and i was being the exact feeling i always want to be (i am in love with the ocean, i came to terms with it - and hiroshi sugimoto, by extension, because of the eternity of the ocean, and the horizon line, cutting straight across, and all the colors and the deepness, and the blue of infinity.... anyway thats a tattoo for another day)"These answers come to me, and i don't remember taking time to think about reaching this conclusion - just knew there was a question that needed a solution (maybe this is some kind of proof that without my input there is something above me working and revealing) - Love is the knowledge, or rather the assurance, that no matter what others have had of yourself or her, that we know, beyond measure, that they never can have as much of that other person that we have had and have found. in each other. and that is enough, to pale out all insecurities, to quell all fears."we need to reveal it all, invest the whole mind and body, to find what we are looking for.