Category Archives: personal journals of my life

Artist’s Depression Journal.. thing, err. confession?

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I don’t know how to fucking write.

I mean I don’t know how to write something that I’ll actually post.

I’m staring in to my head.. its 7 26 AM.. I haven’t gone to bed yet.. and I’m in a kinda dark place.

I haven’t really been able to put my finger on it.. on what’s wrong.. and still.. Jesus, wtf is wrong anyway? Maybe it’s just some kinda brain chemistry strangeness… I’m not sure that it has anything to do with outward material reality.. to be perfectly honest.. I think it’s just those inward demons.

Often when people talk about Demons it’s vice related.. this isn’t that kinda demon.. Maybe that kinda demon is one you don’t wrestle with well enough.. and so it manifests in your material reality.. confronting you that way.. but this… this is more of an inward thing that.. I wrestle with too hard for it… to materialize totally.

As I say that.. I realize.. who the hell am I kidding.. what is my life if not a materialization of the demonic! I mean lets gets serious.. my life sucks.

Hmmm…

And why does it suck? I mean.. not the surface explanations.. I mean the really deep truth, what is that? Maybe I should just sit down and pray.. maybe that would reveal it to me.

Hell.. I don’t even care what the reason is.. I’d just like to get to a better place!

Anyway… so this is what I’m feeling right now.. the thoughts that are going through my head right now.. it’s.. my sense of things right now…  Accept that to explain it by writing is to be forced into some sorta of linear path to creating an image.. and I’m having a hard time expressing it really.

So.. I’m in bed.. sitting up… my cat by my site.. me sitting here with laptop in hand.. and down stairs.. that’s where the studio is.. that’s where the real shit takes place… or where the real shit should take place.. where it would take place if I could just muster the courage.

Or find the inspiration.

I’m working on a music project.. but mostly I procrastinate working on the music project.

I can’t even tell if I’m moving forward on it at all right now.. to tell you the truth.

I’m not sure about my judgement on it… I’ll tell you. Sometimes I’ll take a listen.. and I’ll think “holy crap, listen to that!!!” It’s like some amazing sonic experience.. something very special that I’ve crafted.. and some times I feel like some master artist.. making magick happen.

Other times? Yeah.. total fucking crap.. or not crap.. just.. just how do I find my way through this problem.

That’s the real gist of it.. all art seems that way to me.. .and epic battle.. you go and try and make something.. and what you make is crap.. and you go “oh shit, that’s crap” and you wonder.. what can you do to transmute it into something less crappy.. or.. why is it crap?

It’s like this puzzle you puzzle over.. and slowly you push through it.. you just keep at it.. and over time.. by a process of confronting the problems.. you eventually remove the problems.

See.. it’s all about your perception as the artist.. your aesthetic reaction.. if you hear it and think it’s great… you keep it, if you think it sucks, you change it.. for every element you work with… unless you get lazy or something..  so what happens is that you’re basically imprinting you’re aesthetic reaction onto the sonic canvas.

Now the surrealism of it is.. the way what sounds you’re attracted to, what you’re repulsed by.. has to do with your mood, your psychology.. and so in this way the music becomes like a confession of your experience… and confession that is not necessarily just the confession of the conscious mind.

And so the problems you struggle with in the work.. those are your demons.

But also interesting.. it might be slightly peculiar to music.. especially when the mix engineering bit is a part of the art it’s self.. that there are multiple paths your ear can take through the sonic experience.. and this is really one of the huge challenges in the production.

What happens is you can loose the big picture focus and dwell on these details.. that may or may not matter at all. Hell.. you might be ruining it as a result…

It’s like there’s this giant multiplicity of potential sonic experiences.. at every moment in the music.. and what happens as you’re working is.. you just get stuck on this one… spot. One pathway through the sonic art.

Err, I’ll get more specific in talking about what I’m doing now.

Basically I started out trying to do a drum and bass track.. but got lost somewhere around the way.. in any event I roughed out part of an arrangement… and now I’m going through and.. creating like.. the next level of polish… But it’s really a whole lot more then polish.

I think… I have these first kinda section nailed down pretty well.. and there needs to be a few more sections kinda worked up a little better.. and I think I need to do something with delays in a few points.. like really huge delay where it sounds like… just some giant space or explosion.

Or at least that’s the solution that comes to me.

But I’m also not sure of what’s going on in the bass frequencies.. or if the snare is hitting through hard enough.. and every time I add a detail.. I get really afraid that I’m muck something up.

So what I’ve started to do is the old “lets make each element tiny so that we can have this lush huge experience,” this is an engineering thing.. if in a given moment in the mix.. there’s just one single acoustic guitar playing.. that acoustic guitar can take up all of the frequency space of the mix.. but as soon as you start adding elements.. you have to take away frequencies from that guitar.. and give it to other stuff.. so the guitar becomes smaller and smaller…

And then.. via automation… what you’ll do is.. make that guitar sound bigger, maybe.. when there’s less stuff playing, and smaller when there’s more stuff playing.. and it’s really just a way of crafting the focus.. you don’t really experience it as getting bigger or smaller if you’re the typical music listener.

The album example I always think of for this is Slayer’s Seasons of the Abyss.. the way the drums.. when they are alone get huge.. or the guitars when they are alone get huge.. and the whole thing is like some giant brilliant symphony.. the way the elements play with one another and the way the music flows…

The Next Night:

I woke up at 7 PM “this morning.” It’s 11 40 AM, and I plan to go unconscious soon.. with any luck anyway.

Today I really didn’t get shit done… DP.. my production environment crashed a few times.. work was lost.. and I worked  to bring in a whole bunch of Absynth patches.. into the project.. but kept running up against this memory limitation.. and it was around this time that I learned that my version of DP… the current version…. doesn’t support 64-bit.. it’s 32-bit.. meaning much of my ram it can’t access.. thus the memory problem.

That pissed me off.. cause it’s like hitting you’re head against a wall.. you realize.. you can’t go any further really.. or you cant go far or.. you’re going to have to fucking figure some shit out.. or wait till the next version comes out and you’ve somehow managed to get the money together for it…

Anyway.. I eventually gave up on the project and went to start a new project… and then sorta drifted back to the old project.. to take another look…

I don’t know.. I don’t if the project’s any good or not.. I don’t if it’s just ok, if it’s great.. if it’s a steaming turd.. I just don’t know.. and I guess I have to live with that.

Late night, early morning, time for a visit to the hospital

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Its about 5 30 AM and I haven’t made it to sleep yet. I’ve been having some trouble sleeping now for a while.. last week or so I would guess… and that’s not a real issue for me accept that I gotta appointment at the hospital at 8 30 tomorrow morning, or this morning… which means I have to wake up in like.. a couple hours.. and I doubt I’ll have fallen asleep by then which means.. its going to be a rough time.. particularly given that I’m not to drink anything but water till my appointment.. meaning no caffeine to help me stay awake.

It’s already bad enough that the day before the appointment I’m not to eat any kind of fatty foods… and well.. I didn’t discover this, or that my appointment was today.. till pretty late in the day.. so… I’m not sure how that might effect things.

And right now I’m just freaking tired.

Its about 15 minutes till Christmas

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I’m sitting in bed, with my cat, some Diorites, Gatorade, and a small assortment of pills that I am to take…

I’m spent… really really spent. I got very little sleep last night.. so I’ve been in a surreal sleep deprived state the whole day… I worked on a post on the subject… but…

There are some posts that are difficult for me to post.. these are usually of the longer, more complex, variety… epic if you will. Posts where I deep dive into one or another subject.. and probably a subject that your average reader would come to without a whole lot of background knowledge..

It was said to me, at one point, that it was like you needed a PhD in Matt.. to really follow this stuff.

I’d like to do more posts like that actually. It might not make a lot of sense from the usual marketing perspective.. but it might.

You see there’s the really deep and rich intellectual foundation to my work.. to my way of being in the world.. I am some kind of a philosopher I guess you could say… and I think.. if you should find the subjects interesting… which at least I do.. I think this could be some very exciting stuff to go and explore publicly.

This stuff, I think, is the real reason why I was put on this earth.. this is my real passion… and… the spirits whom visit me seem to be beckoning me onward.. down these paths.

That’s a strange thing to say… but that gets at my mystic shtick

I imagine you’ve probably seen the Matrix movie(s).. In a way the movie suggests that the world we take for reality.. is really an illusion.. and the real world is this other thing.. and its about saving humanity from the illusion that enslaves us. Or that’s one way to think of it.

Well its a sorta similar idea.. I heard this said somewhere.. I think by a psychoanalyst..  some people cling to fantasy in order to escape reality, others cling to reality to escape there fantasy’s. I always liked that.

Another way of pointing to it is something Jung said in reference to psychology types:. The mysteries of the universe extend infinitely into the outer material world.. but they also extend infinitely into the interior world of the psyche.. folks more orientated to the outer world we call extroverts, people more orientated to the inner world we call introverts.

The point here.. an what people miss.. is that the inward world is just as real as outer world. You can say “it’s all in your mind” about.. whatever.. but at root.. all the problems of life are inward problems..

So this business of talking about mystical things.. spirits.. whatever.. the mystic side of religions and mythologies from the dawn of time.. have served as a road map to this inward world.. and a part of the truth they speak to is the truth of inward reality. And in large measure I’d say this is one of the big things the world is missing today…

And this is really what my art and work is all about exploring.

So when I speak of spirits beckoning me onward.. I’m personifying actual psychic, or psychological… experience.

And it’s “not just subjective.”

The surrealists, of course, thought of it as a kind of “ultimate reality” and it really is, in many ways… what Plato was trying to get to with is ultimate ideas..

Anyway… I think think this is probably a post worth posting

I’m sick

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Not in bed sick exactly.. although now I’m waring a coat and hat… dressed as I would to go out.. while sitting at the computer in the living room… though this is perhaps more an effect of the “how to we handle the cost of heating the house problem” then it is an issue of me being sick in anyway.

Today I woke up about 3 PM… last night I went to bed about 7PM, I’m guessing… and then woke up for a number of hours, before going back to bed.

I’m really barely out of bed.. not capable of much.. just basic survival.. is kinda where things are at at the moment…

Fortunately I’m an uber computer person.. which means… well that it doesn’t take much energy to do stuff… but.. well, mental energy… and my brain is a little soft and squishy at the moment.. at least when it comes to what you might call serious intellectual labor of any kind.

Well.. I am waiting for RAM to arrive anyway… and much of the real work I’m itching to do requires that RAM…

But…

Just the idea of bringing out the trash tonight.. fills me with dread…

What I think I’m going to do is make something for me to eat.. and then… from there.. see about the trash and bed… I think I’m going to set up a work station in bed kinda situation..

My laptop is decidedly underpowered when it comes to the subject of.. well just what kinda software is installed on it relative to music production… its mostly out of date.. and most of my software I never bothered installing on it.. and its optical drive isn’t what it was… but.. well.. what the hell.. its still worthy of some work…

If I’m just laying in bed.. not even bothering to put in the effort to keep my body upright.. I can sometimes fool myself into thinking I’m not sick at all.. and thus work on forward.. so now I’m going to look into some of that….

One boring blog post you should probably not bother reading

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It’s important to me that I achieve the basic goal of posting regularly.. which means not letting more then a week go buy without a post.. and really ideally… there probably should be about a post a day coming from me and… I’m not sure of the head space I need.

I guess this is what I always think about with respect to blogging.. or I mean successful blogging… Is that it requires a different kind of head trip then the one I’m on.. and I’m not really sure how to get on that other head trip.. and.. and do I even really want that.. enough to do that?

You know that’s the funny thing about success… we all want it.. but how many of us want it bad enough to make it happen… and I suppose it depends on what level of success we are talking about, and just how we want to define success… and all of that kinda thing.

I mean we’d probably all like to be making millions but..

For me… right now.. success is just putting one foot forward, in front of the other.. and keeping up with the trying.. in making my way through life… and success is doing this without letting go of my dreams. And success is.. growing.. and success is… well…. growing is probably the biggest thing I’m always interested in… more so the economic stuff really.

Trouble is, of course, I need to get the economic stuff stuff in order.. carry on… and without it.. i often grow dark.

Well n e who… not much of a blog post.. but it’s tonights post

Cause sometimes you just can’t get enough rambling

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Here I am again, posting…

I’m searching for a voice in these blog posts.. it’s difficult to find…

I think my voice is.. kinda… Beat-esk in the sense that I feel beat-en.. in the sense of… what you got form the Beat generation. And I’m deeply influenced by those guys anyway.

But I think it’s like..

I don’t know.. some percentage of what I post I think is really fucking good.. an a much larger percentage I think is embarrassingly flawed.. .and I think it must have something to do with the voice.

What’s strong.. in me is often this kind of… beaten down person.. worn down.. weary… from slings and arrows of suffering.. inward suffering.. who the fuck taught you to suffer like this?’

Well.. whatever the fuck it is it is.. and it is.. a matter of fact.. it is reality… it is reality in all it’s darkness.. glorying in it like pig in shit… and that…. that is a beautiful thing!

I mean.. fuck.. so much of the shit people write.. they are so concerned with there careers and business and all this shit.. that reality.. is totally white washed away.. nobody knows what the fuck reality is off in those lands.. this land.. that I’m standing on here.. is no that land, let me tell you…

And that.. that simple fact.. that’s enough to make it worth reading.. hearing.. see what this voice has to say… it could be something worth while… and you feel that possibility ever more acutely as the old sources of whatever.. grow more and more boring.. as there deception takes effect.

Well anyway.. I get concerned with my bullshit to.. and get sucked in.. and become this creature.. like Golomn or something… who’s not even fully human.. but’s still shooting out these posts.. and what the fuck does he think he’s doing?

I don’t know.

But I see this in me and I go… Jesus.. we got some wiring issues going on…

This deal about the public self.. this here is my public self…

It’s one version of me.. there are others.. some more positive then others…

I spend a lot of time these days thinking about getting old and all the life I failed to live up until this point.. and figuring that should tell me about all the life I will fail to live going forward.. which brings me to this issue of.. well just what the fuck should I be doing..

But as I say.. I’m fucking tired

to tired edit this shit..

so deal with my poor craft…

The Sleep Problem

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It’s 4 19 AM

I’m not sleeping.

Last night? I got like.. 4 hours I think?

So I’m in surreal reality-vill.. and… feel like I’m falling apart.

My mind is plagued by… all kinds of stuff really…

In my.. well.. forever wrestling with self stuff stuff… the last idea I’m kinda… clinging to is the idea that I ought to “Zen out.”

My therapist would probably approve.

By Zen-ing out.. I mean… a kind of psychological disengagement with entangling things.. to withdraw my psychic energy from such things… radically so.. to kinda.. try and.. and…

Well I don’t know.. I wont tell the whole story here..

I’ll just go so far as to say… I’m tired and in a surreal place and… I think I’m to go to bed and see how that works out for me.

Late night whatever’s.. .about a day in the life

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It’s 10 30 PM and I’m signing out…

Today was.. not a terribly productive day.. I have a lot of days like this. I feel pretty down on myself for the day… but…. well.. I don’t know…

Hmmm…..

I did work on this music project I’ve been working on for a while now.. I think its coming along pretty well.. just slow..

Ok.. well I think…

So this business of me not being productive… I have this need to find ways of rationalizing this.. I guess its to fight the part of me that gets down on myself over stuff like this.. but…

Well the way I look at it is.. I don’t know if I’d say I don’t believe in free will, just that I think the issue of the will is complex.. and we’ve known for a long time that the conscious will is not really running the show of how our lives unfold.

So what the hell is going on in my unconscious?

Well I think it’s the relative isolation of my life.. not getting out enough.. I think I can afford to go out this thursday… to this.. I don’t know.. social media and journalism workshop…

But I NEED to get out more, to have more social contact.. one way or another.. and I think what it is is it’s really just this.. kinda pushing at me.. and distracting me from my work.. and I think.. its sorta a question of quality of social experience to…

The other part of it is just.. the kind of environmental stressors.. how bad this month has been for me.. how bad everything has been for me for so long…

But the deal is that somehow I gotta pull myself out of it… Like it’s up to me to make my life a better place.. that’s the thing…

And there’s real questions in my mind.. if the way to do it is to work on projects like this music project.. or to work on getting work… somehow… so that I can have more money… and like.. not have to go through the difficulty I seem to go through every month.

And having a job would help my social situation.. and a whole bunch of other elements…. of stuff.

Anyway.. i’m signing out…

When the thread you hang on by breaks: Preambles to “exit ideation”

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Leaf of DeathSo I’ve chronicled the story… of.. well what has brought me to this place.

And then there’s what’s yet to be chronicled

Blue Hills Old 128: fallen treeI may have mentioned this.. but Wed, as a result of what happened.. I missed a therapist appointment and an appointment to see about getting a primary care physician which is sorta an extremely needed thing on account of the viscous state of my eczema.

Well.. Friday my friend Joy helped go out to see if the car might be there.. where I left it.. it was not, it was towed. She said she’d be hear early today but it’s creeping up on 4PM and still no word.. I figure the tow must have at least cost $100.. and then there’s however much it’s gong to cost to keep it in the lot per day.

I’m living on less then $100 a week at this point.. per month.. It’s now been something like 4 or 5 months in a row.. where the month ends in this kind of extreme position.. of not knowing how you’re going to eat.. or being about to even leave your house cause of the cost of gas… the hyper isolation…

So every month you get beaten down.. to the ground.. to the point where you don’t always fucking know who the fuck you’re kidding about this whole carrying on business… you never fucking get to stand up and just fucking feel like a normal fucking human being for fucking… just give me a little fucking time away from this fucking hell.

And now I know this month.. is going to be just another one in the series…

And I’m just watching as so many of my hopes seem to go down the drain

And fuck it, you know? Just fuck it… I’ve fucking had enough.

No, I’m not going to kill myself just.. but I feel that kinda pain..

Waking up

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Blue Hills Old 128: fallen treeI’ve pulled myself out of bed.. coffee’s on, though not yet ready. My neck and body stiff from so much time in bed and my legs are telling me “dude, why not stay in bed” and hell.. so is the rest of me.. and I feel as if I’m under the influence of some pain suppressant that has rendered my body numb…

I like the morning light though, seems like a nice day in store.

I’m so.. between sleep and waking life.. and where my body is at.. just not feeling capable of much… more then sitting here waiting for the coffee to be ready.

And my hands, from the eczema… hurt real bad.. a number of open wounds…

I still feel so tired.. but I figure I’ve been sleeping long enough.. On the other hand.. that could be the delusion of dreams talking.