Well, I’ve been on Summer break for about 2 weeks now. I just finished up my junior year of high school, and I could not be happier. Actually, I definitely could be because it sucks that I still have one more year left of this shit, but that is another story for another day. Anyway, saying I’ve caught up on my sleep over these 2 weeks would be an understatement, so I’ll just say that I pretty much wake up, work on my art projects, go back to sleep, and wake up for practice. I don’t read, I don’t really write anything, I pretty much just do whatever I have an urge to, whether it be eat, sleep, or do art.

Most people love Summer because they don’t have to worry about doing homework or studying, or waking up early, and I am no different, but over these 2 weeks I have realized that my favorite part about summer is not that absence of homework or an alarm clock, but rather just, being by myself. I live with my mom and brother, and they both work, so I am home alone from 7-5, and it is truly wonderful. I love waking up and not having to talk to anyone or do what they tell me. I’ve realized that the worst part of the school year is that I have to wake up just to go to a place where I dislike the good majority of people there and sit down and be told what to do all day. Call me lazy, antisocial, or whatever else, it’s true. I don’t mind doing work when it’s something I’m interested in, but taking orders from my dick-head teachers like a meek robot is not really something I enjoy doing. My work ethic gets worse and worse every year, and I admit that, but I refuse to think that I get lazier every year. I think that as I get older, I am just finding myself, and myself tells me that I would rather be doing art or reading about interior design and philosophy than doing something dumb like my trigonometry homework. I am naturally very good at math, but I will not use that later in my life, so why practice it? I don’t naturally know everything about architecture, interior design, or history, so shouldn’t I be focusing on that? I can’t wait to get to college where my coursework will be specialized and really allow me to focus on what I want to focus on, even if my degree requires a shit ton of work, at least it’s work that is preparing me for something I will actually do.

So, back to the main point. I’m gonna go eat some mac and cheese.

I just wanted to expound in this a little further because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.

I don’t understand why everyone thinks that the modernistic art of today is so dumb. Sure, it’s easy to physically create, but the thought behind it it takes a great mind, and that doesn’t just happen overnight. Maybe you don’t understand the symbolism of a giant red canvas, but I bet you couldn’t even begin to imagine what kid of thought went into that. The color, shape, size, and meaning. The art of today is about thought, and the provoking of it. We don’t just paint religious scenes and kings, like in the past, because those aren’t the center of our life now. We don’t have a consensus of values here anymore. This life is constantly changing, and most of us don’t know what to think. This simplistic art reflects that. Life in the past had a religion or widespread belief that was accepted by all. They did not have to experiment and ask open-ended questions. The paintings they made were the answers, the questions had already been asked and answered by the artist. Today, the art is the question, the answer is left to you to come up with.

But today’s life is not by any means devoid of values. We may not centralize our lives around religion, but that does not take away our longing to have something to believe in and be a part of. We need to be shaped. We need to be told how to live our lives, and this is not changing anytime soon. We are more aware of our feelings now than we have ever been before, and that is what created this fading away of organized religion. We don’t think less than we did before, we just think differently. Life today isn’t bad and devoid of values, it is simply different than life has been in past times, and there is nothing bad about that, it just depends on what you do with it.

I think I decided that I don’t like telling people anything about myself because once I say something, it’s final. Once a feeling or thought is put into words and heard by someone else, it cannot be taken back, it cannot be changed. Once whoever I have opened up to has created this opinion of me, that cannot be erased. The one simple way of even coming close to undoing it, would be to open up to that same person a second time, and admit that I’m wrong. This frightens me. And that, that is where my biggest issue lies. I think I keep to myself because I am so stubborn, and I am so stubborn because I keep to myself.

I also think that I think too much.