A lot of artists say that they don’ t want to explain their work. That they like for the interpretation to be up to the viewer and I get why. For me, this isn’ t one of those times. I’ m not writing this as a guide or as a means to an end but rather as an explanation of the road that got me here and hopefully not tell you what to think but rather what to think about. Not today and maybe not even tomorrow but hopefully someday you can put down your phone, close your laptop, take your headphones out and listen and look and think, better yet question and know, there’ s never one right answer.
M
The idea of a catalyst was perplexing to me. I think that it drums up a number of initial thoughts and ideas but the more you think about it, is pretty brilliant yet even vague. At first it feels external and forceful, almost like you’ re forcing things to happen. I wanted this poem to instead, evoke the feeling of a catalyst as being internal.
I thought I would start with a stream of consciousness dialogue around the idea of possibilities … and to be honest, the poem wrote itself. I found that my subconscious associates these ideas of possibility and catalysts with the following motifs:
Awareness Pressure Control Resistance Timing Letting go
The idea of possibilities came from the thought that in order for things to happen there needs to be an action and a reaction, much like a catalyst and in order for the action and reaction to take place, there needs to be an intersection of possibility.
Imagine, you’ re in your car at an intersection. You can go straight, you can go left, you can go right or you can turn around. When we pull up to the intersection, we’ re all aware of what our possibilities. The options are clear and when they’ re not, the outcome is madness.
So here we are, we’ re at a place where the possibilities are endless and there’ s pressure. We have to choose and the tensions are building. The ideas inside of us are welling up. We have to let some out perhaps because we’ re bursting from the inside, or perhaps to make room for the next one.
Now, we’ re walking down a hallway of possibility. We can walk through this door and date this person. We can walk through that door and take that job. We’ re aware the doors are there and we feel pressure to go through them, but we have control of which knob we turn. Other people may open up the doors but we’ re the only ones moving our feet.
When I first started thinking about catalysts, I not only thought about possibility but I had a vision of a fire, however I was visualizing the fire as people and possibilities. The more people we surround ourselves with, the more fuel we’ re adding to our fire and ashes are flying and settling around us, but we’ re still resistant and burning. And there’ s a choice, you can keep burning, fly with the other ashes or settle on the ground. I’ d prefer to feel weightless and use the ground as my sense of awareness.
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