Ego...

I am going to think about this one for awhile, and may or may not get to post anything substantial on it. For now, just noting that I have read and enjoyed the conversation about ego started by Bill Gusky, taken up by Ashes, and further explored by HLIB.

I think ego and individualism makes art less interesting, that mining the individual self for meaning is, first and foremost, a total fucking bore in our confessional, therapeutic (I would say Sextonesque) culture. And yeah, I want what Ashes wants. I like this a lot:

I think I am probably on the same page as Gusky, in wanting more art and less ego, more art where the artist is transparent. Where an artist is conducting the fluid motion of meaning through elements and into the waiting ~mind~ of the recipient, and where the recipient is understand broadly to include the artist and the environment also. All of us are participants in that environment, and we understand art to be a kind of play that we do to increase our understanding of ourselves in our environment.

This is an eastern mentality; it's stepping aside to allow truth to emerge. So I like it because it suits my interests--I am a wanton Japanophile and martial arts geek, compulsive i ching consulter, terrible-but-long-dedicated yogi and occasional buddhist. But I also think that this kind of thinking is a potentially useful new direction...

...a way for artists to act as servants and not as court jesters or bad children.