George
You Get Me Closer To God
While reading Henry Miller, I’m always amazed at how he uses sex not as a plot point, but something more akin to a time out. As Miller plods along through his memoir-as-a-novel catalogue – sex is prevalent throughout. Yet, the books aren’t about who he fucked (Cliff Note’s version: everyone), they are more about the thoughts and philosophies that are born from a carnal understanding of the world. Perhaps a more contemporary, a far more succinct, version of this would be Trent Reznor in Nine Inch Nails: “I want to fuck you like an animal….. You get me closer to God.”
The Un-United States of America that we live in today is centered around sex; some people call it religion; some people call it morality; but at the end of the day – it’s all sex. Who you marry. Who controls your body. What closets your trapped in. What pleasures are you depriving yourself from. Miller knew this. He captured these thoughts in so many places, but the passage from Sexus in my recent post makes me draw parallels to today’s world and the world of Miller. How many of us don’t know what we want out of life because we restrain ourselves? How many of us purge the Id from our lives in order to conform? And because of this restraint – in it’s myriad of forms, do we strive to destroy others that aren’t haunted by these phantoms. Are we simply smashing ourselves in this hall of mirrors that we call life?
If Miller can eloquently find the pressure points of human nature in the 1940′s, during the “Greatest Generation,” and they are so mirrored by today’s world – can we even claim progress? The more and more I read thinkers from the past, the more I see how things don’t change. That is both a comforting thought and one that unnerves me to no end….
No Direction Home
Recently, I was told I was going to receive a special honor from my alma mater, and I started reflecting on my career, which ultimately started thinking about all the people that have helped me in my life. I can’t say that I am not at the benefit of some amazing people, but as I enter the fourth decade of my life – I realize I am without someone that can help me blaze the path that I want for myself.
There are few things that make me happier than working with college students and young professionals on their careers. It’s the thing that I look forward to the most in my day to day – to sit with someone and help them find their strengths, work on their weaknesses, and give them the confidence to succeed in whatever lies ahead. I think I take such pride in this because it was never afforded to me. I never received such mentoring from family, from friends, and very rarely from colleagues. My current employer is definitely a place where mentoring occurs, and as I navigate through my second year, I am looking forward to finding and cultivating those relationships that have always eluded me. I am an on search to find that person that I strive to be to the young professionals in my life.
It’s somewhat scary. My career has always been powered by my confidence. There have been many people around me that have been smarter than me. More creative than I am. More organized. Very few of them had my confidence. I, however, am at a crossroad. It’s not that the confidence has gone away. In fact, the confidence is stronger than ever. I just wonder where that confidence can be applied. What is the direction for my career? What are the next steps? What tools and weapons do I need as I step into a new arena? These are the questions that I want to ask that mentor that’s eluding me. These are the questions that this year will help me answer.
Goodbye….
This blog was created by me back before he ever thought that he would make any money from the internet. Since the first post (which has long since been hidden), this blog represented who “George” was as a person, his many interests, and his growing career. Change – however – is inevitable. This blog has wrestled with that change over the last few years. Only recently, has it became obvious that I have outgrown it. I still love it in so many ways, I keep telling myself that I will return to it. And perhaps I will. But my creative energies have somewhat shifted. The long form, often emotional narratives are few and far between. They lived concealed in their analog siblings or possibly lay unwritten in the crevices of my imagination. I just can’t simply write them anymore. And so, with that, my artistic expression has shifted toward simpler devices – a Tumblr blog where I spend more time reacting rather than creating – or, twitter, where I capture my daily thoughts and conversations with friends and acquaintances alike.
I want to keep this site alive – which is something I have never done with blogs before. The delete key has erased from the web so many of my thoughts, writings, poetry, emotions, stories, and I couldn’t do that to this blog. It meant to much. Everything I ever did on the web lead me here, and now I want to leave it – both as a memory of who I was, and for the possibility that I will return to it. Please – if you’re so inclined – continue to follow me on the sites listed below. If not, I understand. Thank you for reading….
Tumblr: http://www.georgegsmithjr.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/georgegsmithjr
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/georgegsmithjr
George G Smith Jr
8/7/2011
George G Smith Jr
8/7/2011
So what if I haven’t blogged…
My journals – like the one pictured above – spawned websites which begat this blog, and while many of my writings have been dispersed into the ether of the internet – I can’t help but wonder what happened to that drive to create. I haven’t written anything in a while. And while the reasons for that are a mixtures of excuses, ultimately they are all just conjugations of the word “busy.” And while I sit here on the internet imbibing content constantly, I feel like I’m not creating anything.
I have this urge to create things lately. And today – it finally dawned on me. I just need to do it. I make these excuses – I’m busy, my space is uninspiring – yet at the end of the day I need to take control. I am generally doing one of two things: consuming things, or creating things. The amount of consumption in my life is unbalanced. Like a diet, I need to find the right mixture to produce the desired results.
The amazing thing is that I’m probably creating more things than I ever had before. I’m just in a different stage of creation than I ever was before. Instead of being the writer, I am more of a conductor. And while I still write from time to time – I spend more of my cognitive energies attempting to get others to compose things for me. It’s a new perspective; one that I attack with gusto even if I miss being down with pen and paper.
Day Two of CoHabitation or (How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb)
So my girlfriend has never read Ulysses. It’s the little things that you learn when you start living with a person. I don’t actually think James Joyce is a harbinger of bad things for our relationship, but I figured it was something to document for posterity. And who knows, maybe we’ll come back to Joyce…
Living with Lanes (that’s what our sitcom would be called) is actually quite easy, which is what I anticipated. There is that fear in the back of my head though. That I’m going to discover something – the infamous “DealBreaker” – and that this is all going to go awry. Of course, the rational part of me realizes that I already know that Lanes is flawed. I’m not expecting perfection. I’m just kind of expecting her, and all her flaws, which I love. Which brings me back to Joyce…
Joyce was blind and near death when he was being interviewed in Switzerland. The interviewer said of his wife, Nora, “She’s been your secretary, your housekeeper, your editor, your muse, your guide, and now she’s your eyes. What do you have to say about that extraordinary intimacy?” And Joyce said, “I would know my wife’s fart in a room full of farts.”
If that’s not loving someone for all their flaws, then I don’t know what is. So, with that, I can stop worrying about some impending deal breaker and just enjoy this cohabitation.
