Sunday Stream (21) ~ Influence, man

[mtmynd]

INFLUENCE

I've been thinking about what I want to be... as if what I am is not enough. How many of us are unfulfilled with what we are or where we are or even what we've become? I certainly fall into those ranks at times. I am human. And as humans we are all filled with foibles, both good and bad... the universal yin/yang influence.

For years I have been creating. Today, best as I can remember, it began with house plans. A Sunday routine of sorts in my family was to go looking at houses - not to buy, mind you, but just to look at the new homes and see the lavish splendor of what money could buy if only.... After doing this for sometime I had my own ideas of what type of home I would build for myself if I had the money. I would sit at my desk with my paper, pencil and ruler and draw out plans for my future home, complete with all the architectural symbols - the open door, the windows, the closets, etc., just like real plans for homes.

Another thing that came into my early life, around 12 or 13, was a small printing press. This neat little unit was intended for young aspiring printers and included small letters carved out of some type of rubber all divided up alphabetically so one could readily locate what letters were needed to typeset into the printing wheel. A small roller was then coated with the provided ink to coat the prepared text and a piece of 8 x 10 inch paper was then placed into the unit and with a crank of the roller out came the printed text - just like the big guys. I envisioned at one point a neighborhood contest - a rock kicking contest. I had never heard of a rock kicking contest before although I had done my fair share of rock kicking - a stone about the size of my then fist size kicked into the chosen direction. My kick would, on lucky kicks, send the rock far and straight just as I had intended. What fun it would be to have a contest! So I had spent the better part of a day typesetting my little idea and it looked 'swell'. I eagarly gathered several of my announcements together, using different colors of ink for effect, and the following day approached my circle of friends and passed them around. No reaction... some giggles and raised eyebrows from a few... my idea, like a thin piece of ice was slowly dripping away before my eyes. Nobody wanted to participate in a rock kicking contest. Was it because they had never enjoyed the sport? O well, back to the drawing board. I printed other things but never another contest.

I was a model enthusiast. I built those plastic models by Monogram and Revell. I went through the various interests - model planes, model ships and , of course, model cars. Those were the best - cars! What young fellow doesn't dream of having his own car and what better way to live out that dream than building the car of his choice, painted the colors he wanted, in kit form...

I still continued my drawing... somewhere in the late 50's or early 60's there was the hot trend of surfing sweeping the country. The art and music associated with surfing was big, very big - Dick Dale, the Beachboys, Jan and Dean for music and Big Daddy Roth was the hip artist of the times... gnarly dudes crammed into rods with the stick shift rising high above the window line of the hotrod, tires smokin', the exhaust pipes spewing speed... all this looked good, man! Of course there was the artwork of the woodies, those old wood paneled station wagons that were really hip for the surfing crowd to strap their boards on the roof and have plenty of room for their friends and even some spare space in the back to have sex with some beach bunny. My art tried to imitate that macho-hood...

I read the magazines that most closely paralleled my own dreams of the times - Hot Rod, Custom Car... not that I owned a car but those were dream mags, man! If only I had the money... if only...

The beats swept in there somewhere, right along with the folk music... the mid-60's0's. I was drawn into that. Phar Lepht soon had its own coffee house - an old single story bungalow-styled house from possibly the 30's or so, painted blue. I went there to join the cool... be part of the scene. Easy to do since a coffee house didn't require ID's. My buddy at the time and I used to go there and listen to the record player play jazz and folk music along with the aroma of coffees permeating the atmosphere, well, it was just too cool, ya know? I got into Kerouac, I read Ginzberg, the Catcher, and soon after Sigmund. Surfing music died and in its place I listened to jazz. I bought albums... boy, did I buy the albums - MJQ, Miles, Coltrane, Eddie Harris, Monk, and if you wanted to be extra-hip - Charles Mingus. The list is too long to go into now, either that or my memory is too short to remember, but it was the influence, man, the influence! That's all that mattered.

I read where some of the beats were 'digging' Zen. I checked that out. But really, how many people, especially 17, 18, 19 years old grasp Zen? It's all just cool double talk.... bring on the sex, man, that's where it's at. Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" was influence... cool sex in dim candle lit rooms with hep chicks smelling like exotic florals... The artwork on that album cover, you guessed it, influenced me.

Jackson (Jack the Dripper) Pollack, De Kooning, Motherwell, Rothko, Johns, Joan Miro, Picasso (of course)... divided by generations but united by concepts - the influence, man, the influence...

Later years the influences continued pouring in - Alan Watts, psychedelic music during the late 60's, poster artists, Hinduism, Buddhism, astrology, philosophies, tripsters and hipsters, stoners and seekers, communes and the road, man, the road. Jack wrote about it and it still lives... the road still influences.

Influences. We are molded by our influences. Three people together, each one influenced by different things... each seeing something differently to focus in on. Influences... we are each a consortium of influences. Each influence a further discovery of our Self. Unwrapping our packages of identity to know ourselves. Some don't give a damn about knowing themselves... they're perfectly happy with where ever they are and to learn and gain from more is relative. Their influence is fulfilled.

Others require more influence. It seems a never-ending quest to find themselves. Years go by and yet there is always that bit of emptiness that needs filling.

Influences... not to copy, not to mimic, but to unravel the ego and find the Self. What is it within those that wants to know the Self? There are no answers but only doing... doing this and doing that to unleash the Self into this world. Release of the self-imposed limitations of the ego to attempt to overcome that ego and find the Self is what is at stake. A sometimes long and arduous journey, but so necessary. Why? Avoid the Why Knot and undo to redo... redo, rebuild, restore the Self to it's place within the world, within the universal schema. There are others that seek the influence that just perhaps, you may have within you. It is not simply a calling but a following that burns within. Pity those that do not listen, those that do not hear, those that fear its unknown... for it is those that shall have no influence, but shall remain influenced, never attaining their own Self.


Cecil (from Ruidoso, NM)
27 February 2005

[hester_prynne]

"unravel the ego..."
Key words for me.
The influences, long becoming invitations to self.
Can it really be so?

Love this stream Cec, it goes right along with a couple of new ventures of my own i'm working on. Much like the rock kicking contest, the flyers are being created, the hopes that work will come from them. Work that I will love doing. The absolute knowing that it may not, I happily accept.

This is an eerily timely stream for me.
Very well done Cec, I must thank you again.
You are of great assist to me in many spontaneous ways, which makes these streams even more magical.
Appreciation is overflowing,
H

[Arcadia]

Thanks cecil!

( Is Ruidoso ruidoso??)

saludos,

Arcadia

[mtmynd]

Thanks, Hes'... time is what time are. luck seems to surround the devout, whatever the belief that allows the soul to shine.

Ola, Arcadia, mi amiga!! Si, Ruidoso esta ruidoso, pero solamente cuando los rios quieren. El silencio tiene el corozon a ir con las aguas...

[WIREMAN]

all the way from chet baker thru rat fink and mad ....to the psychedelic daze I can't really remember...or was it just a dream...
I remember in the 90's discovering my allan watt's books all over again...........................

[Artguy]

Too many influences to count....wish there were none....that it just came out of the haze....(purple?)

[mtmynd]

wired - si... your influences somewhat parallel my own. why these and not others...? ah, the friggin' 'why knot' tied to the reality...again! Thx, Mark.

Kurt - speakin' of influences... the purple haze certainly holds a 'high' ranking, eh? what else but mind blowin'...

[stilltrucking]

I've been thinking about what I want to be... as if what I am is not enough.

There are no answers but only doing

follows:

I don't worry too much about want to be. Not any more. I know I am living on borrowed time. But I do think a lot about what I am doing.
I hope that is progress.

[mtmynd]

well put, truck - not worrying about wanting to be but thinking a lot about what we're doing is nice and tight but loose enough to fit.