The Cloister

It dawned on me just recently how much of my life I’m living inside my own head. That’s to be expected for an artist, I suppose, but it was jarring to realize the extent to which it has become predominant now that art is the main thing I do each day. Well ... that and run errands.

Interruptions don’t simply disrupt what I’m doing; interruptions force me to perceive and assess activities outside my brain. Unfortunately, and I apologize to all humankind for this, my standard reaction to being jarred out my head is profanity. And it doesn’t take much. Those close to me will take no surprise in that statement. That I am a profane individual is well established. So, that being the case, maybe self-absorption has always been part of the wonderfulness of ‘me’. I would re-suggest it’s characteristic of any artist, except I’ve also heard that good artists have to be superb observers of human behavior.

Probably, the thing is, rationalizations aside, I just cuss a lot.

Just the other day, my sweet wife noted that the profanity seemed to have begun even earlier that morning, and I explained that both of my egg yolks had broken while cracking them into the pan. And she noted the horror in that, and that surely civilization is doomed. And she has a point. Assuming, I think correctly, that eggs over-easy are not part of my artistic portfolio, we can conclude the profane reactions when confronted with external stimuli are not artsy, it’s just a less desirable, possibly maladaptive, personality ‘feature’.

​Probably, the thing is, rationalizations aside, I just cuss a lot, and I’m hopelessly self-absorbed, besides. Well, shit.