My mom does not think it the worst thing that I 'ended up a barman in the morning.'  It has kept me around people, and interacting.  Could have ended up with 'a pickup truck and a dog' back home in the Mohawk Valley.  Indeed, it's been a social job, and that has been good for me.  And I've done it now long enough that people and regulars will confide in me when things happen, when life comes at you.

Oh, sure, there is some eccentricity to it, enough to please me, enough of a scheduling like old Dostoevsky, up late at night while the house and the city sleeps, quiet time, alone time to process.  I have to admit that what makes me happy is as simple as taking a walk with my notebook and my thoughts.  Nothing gives you self-confidence more than admitting to yourself your likes and dislikes and following through with them.

Then it becomes a question that you must answer for yourself.  Are you real, or are you a poseur?  Or, to examine it another way, does the roadmap laid out for you by artists immemorial work for you or not, and how does it work for you?  Is what J.D. Salinger did, the disappearance, the rural retreat, the shunning of media, valid, practical, necessary, healthy at least in some ways...  Is what Emily Dickinson did, the retreat into her house, the white dress, the sometimes gardening at night... does that work for you as well to the extent that you are allowed to be so?

The cynic says, oh, that's stupid foolish fantasy, the swelling of self-importance, a vanity of its own, play-acting at being 'a genius,' a running narrative in your head that compels you to act the part of the dark maestro...  the great genius, encountered quietly grocery shopping right under everyone's nose.

But, hey, guess what, people are secretly too wrapped up in their city lives to notice the presence of a thing that is actually common in a profound way, the potential of flowering genius, in the Michelangelos and Leonardo da Vincis present in everyone.  Well, genius in what they do, in how they may be, given good support and love and a decent-hearted education, geniuses of their own if they chose to focus so and give it a bit of commitment enough to receive the natural positive feedback from the self that is a sense of accomplishment.  Leading me to think that genius is largely a matter of focus.  And maybe that speaks of the great risk that is education on all levels, that it is all a matter of the great liberal arts pledge for the individual to, through the course of exposure, find that which makes them tick, that which they are good at.  A liberal arts education is not a snob that tells you you can do this but not that, that you are relegated by your nature to dig ditches the rest of your life.

Maybe it's just better and a cause of more psychological happiness to consider for a moment that pretty much everyone has some, at least if not genius, some cool stuff within.  Hey, my cat's a genius.  She knows what's good for her, when to not run in front of traffic (knock wood.)  It is the vagaries of being an organic being that will get us in the end, not anyone's fault so much (barring dumb behavior and cigarettes and things that inflame our constitution.)

But I do think that you have to be active in carrying through with it, that you need the necessary attitude.  (having slightly lost my train of thought with an apparent computer glitch.)  And I do think that artists have to be sensitive and vulnerable, which sounds like a cliché but isn't.   There are inherent ways to protect the necessary peace against the nerve-wracking and the distractions.

So, maybe it's not so bad to have a protective disguise as you go about your business, an inconspicuous role like barman or grocery shopper, that will serve you well in the long run.  I guess that's as much as I find that it behooves me to be an active member of society.


"Just be yourself," I found myself saying to people, as if I were some sort of expert life coach, a long time ago.  I could cringe for a number of reasons, like just what does that mean?  Does that compel you to act a little different from the rest?  Who was I to be giving intelligent young people any such advice?  And yet, I find myself happy when I pick up my notebook and write in it whatever comes, or when I take it along for a walk down by the stream.  Is that exercise, or is that being an idiot?  Maybe it means, let no one cramp your style, maybe in particular your inner style that is less logical than dressing yourself in a way acceptable to the public, and more intuitive.  Suspend for a time being the 'inner practical voice' that tells you you are wasting time.  What is time for?