The Emperor's New Clothes

Wonder if other people are addicted to the games that come already installed on their computer. I've just spent the last hour and a half playing them. Disgusted with myself, of course. Got up and started to do the chores and thought, no, I must come back, ignore the damn games and write. Write anything. Write something. So here I am. It's getting hot already. Supposed to get to 39 or 40 degree again today so if I do yoga while dripping sweat all over the mat I've no one to blame but myself for leaving it so long while I played. Perhaps others are addicted but don't see it as such or if they do they keep it a secret as I do. I've been known to get up from a TV program I'm enjoying just to come in and have a quick game of solitaire. I'll write and when I can't think of a word or have come to a natural pause will flip up a game. I think this time, today, yesterday, tomorrow, I'll not play any more but will devote my time to creating or reading or something constructive. That will last until the next time I bring up 'games'.

There, I've come to a natural pause and the urge arises to play. It's worse than quitting cigarettes. Another bad habit of mine that I've come to terms with, more or less. Probably less but I smoke and there it is. When someone points out that smoking is such an odd thing for me to do given my otherwise healthy lifestyle, I flippantly reply, 'moderation in all things' which fools no one. Least of all me.

Why are we at war with ourselves? Rather, why am I at war with myself? I know the correct way to live. Correct is perhaps not the correct word. It implies an outwardly imposed law when the rightness of living comes from within. An inner knowing even if I didn't have the media telling me smoking is bad for me. It's akin to knowing that this person is, despite their entertaining manner and colourful persona, not a good person to be around, at least for me. But I can be dazzled by their glamourous aura somewhat like the moth around a flame. I know they're bad but I can't help but be attracted. Must say, bad is a relative term. I can be tremendously strong and easily led at the same time. That effort to please, to be accepted, don't we all have that? We're social animals and it's important to be part of a group. Perhaps in the dim past, our lives depended upon it. Outcasts wouldn't have survived as well, the pariah dog that others threw stones at and drove away from the fire.

Just read an article by Spengler in the Asia Times about the big con of modern art (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IA30Aa03.html). In it Spengler compares modern art to modern atonal music a la Schoenberg. He writes, 'By inflicting sufficient ugliness upon us, the modern artists believe, they will wear down our capacity to see beauty.' Perhaps not consciously but there does seem to be this trend to glorify the ugly, the sadistic, the scatalogical, death and destruction. Perhaps it's a reflection of the dark fear of modern man, that we are skating on the edge of self-created destruction. We are the authors of our destruction, we know what is the right thing to do, yet we persist in doing the exact opposite, rather like my small beans game playing. A macrocosm in the microcosm. Humanity seems to have gone collectively insane. He writes that in a gallery we are in control of how much time we spend in front of an artist's work, while in the concert hall we're stuck for the duration. But that doesn't explain why people pay such huge money for crap (sometimes literally). He (perhaps Spengler is a she but I'll use he for simplicity) uses the example of a cow's head in a glass jar covered with maggots *created* by Damien Hirst. It was purchased by an ad executive called Saatchi.

Why?

It's makes me laugh. Really. Richard and I spent months holding our breath as we walked past a maggot-ridden dead horse which had broken it's neck against a fence post. The owner of the horse didn't bother to drag it away. Granted it had died on an inhabited stretch of our country road and as we are the only ones that walk it, probably no one was affected but us (except the dogs who thought it was smelled delicious and tried to drag us over). Spengler didn't write how much was paid for it but having just googled Hirst I see he is touted as Britain's richest living artist for works celebrating death and animals preserved in formaldehyde. Ye gods, a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine tank sold for $8 million pounds. This HAS to be a case of The Emperor's New Clothes. Doesn't it? I have visions of the 'artists' laughing behind their hands as they collect their money. A huge joke because we believe their hype that if we don't 'get it' we're uncivilized philistines. A title we should wear as a badge of honour.