I used to watch Dr. Phil and drink a cheap can of soda pop—I’d make the pop last the whole hour; I knew that I couldn’t go on like that forever—which is why, I think, I looked forward to heaven on earth. I figured, if I could hold out long enough, something good would happen—I’d be reunited with my grandfather—not the one with false teeth and a temper—but the one that, somehow, in my mind, had merged with Shakespeare—whereas his father before him merged with Picasso, and so on and so forth, until some unbeknownst ancestor represented Jesus. It was like my relatives—my dead relatives—came to earth and played a part. They played their parts in order to direct the future toward what they called today’s event, which, apparently, mattered more than anything.
But what was today’s event? If it were categorized as “today’s,” then it implied that events from day to day were different. I gather however, that they all pointed toward a kind of vacation—a visit with people from other dimensions or universes, with live music, (often banjo music), and a feast—we even had drinks that made you carefree—and, unlike alcohol, they never made you depressed or mean. Basically we just acted like kids and goofed around; sometimes our features changed, or our hair color, and we looked at everything under a new light, a light that made short work of what, otherwise, might be tedious.
Dr. Phil couldn’t protect me, however. The person watching Dr. Phil wasn’t me; I had better things to do—but, I didn’t think of it that way. I used to think that what really impressed people was when you “just did that” and no more, like an actor conserving his energy, or a painter conserving his brush strokes. The more talented you were, the more potential energy you had—so you’re talent basically showed through, and people admired you for not doing anything—for doing “just that.” I have to admit, too, that I had some idea that conserving my energy—being still—would make it easier for me to tune into people from another time—the past or the future. So I tried to hold everything in as best I could, thinking that, if I didn’t explode, I’d break a threshold that divided me from my loved ones.
I didn’t mind being related to Shakespeare—but I didn’t care for Picasso—I thought he was a jerk that exploited himself and others in order to be the king of the hill. But, as I came to understand my great-grandfather, I realized that he, too, exploited his advantage—which, essentially, means you give into doubt, and turn, through sarcasm, from the divine. So I accepted that I was related to both Picasso and my great-grandfather—there was a likelihood that my great-grandfather played that part. Basically, I was coming to terms with the idea that I turned on both myself and my talent when I looked up to men that weren’t as admirable as I had imagined them to be. I accepted it, and, in doing so, I accepted that I might take on the bad attributes of the men that drove us forward in time—and, in doing that, I’d be forced to make up for it by doing the work—which, at times, meant topping whoever and whatever I could—through various, if not any, means.
I eventually grew out of my Dr. Phil and my just that phase. The idea sprang from the notion that people were watching me, and they admired my resistance—my protest to being watched; but in reality nobody was watching me—I was too good at doing just that, and, because of that, I’d vanish, when I died, and I’d be misunderstood. When I began to realize—after an excruciating amount of time—years, in fact—that this was the case, I realized, too, that people from the future had every advantage, where as I did not, and, therefore, doing just that seemed a bit pointless. It was time, instead, to clear a path toward that—that was my real purpose, what I was good at, and, I felt, what I was born to do. So I gave it all up—and turned to my painting, which I pursued cautiously and painfully at first, and then, after relearning how to interact (and expending potential energy) with renewed vigor.