Banality & Trajectory

Suffering a minor injury three weeks ago has lead me down a road of boredom and restlessness that I'm finding difficult to deal with in any truly productive ways. This injury coincided with a change in my employment, moving myself into a realm with more time (theoretically a good thing) and less money (always annoying but should be fine once I adjust to the changes). The changes felt like a banalized but concentrated attack upon my body, my schedule and the way I was moving in the world. Arguably this is something that was needed to shake things up, but the small quake of multiple changes resulted in larger waves of irritation than expected.

I have reached the point of "finishing up" my forthcoming book, Experimental Men, which is slated for release on my 33rd birthday at the end of May. The text is complete and I'm in the process of final edits, and then I'll begin the design process and photo editing and turning the text into a "Proper Book." This is normally the stage of the process that I find most satisfying and exciting (shaping the material into a book that is) but for some reason, right now, I can't find the necessary motivation to jump into the process. I find myself instead letting my headspace wander towards inklings of future projects.

Part of the intent of Experimental Men is to provide an 'exegesis' of my project up until now (as I'm surely at a point of shifting direction) for those interested in it, and also to allow myself a sort of final exorcism of the particular territory I've been mining for over ten years at this point. The book contains texts that have been formerly published elsewhere along with 'new' content, all heavily revised and edited. The 'core' (the corps even) of the book is Hotel, which was conceived of as an expanded 'novel' in 2008/09. Completing Hotel felt like the defining element of the project, as it was something that I had been holding onto in my subconscious for the entire duration of its unfinished existence. It began at the beginning of this specific corpus and has just been completed at the literal end, so the duration really allowed all of the necessary elements and conclusions that the ten years of narrative explorations of such specific themes brought up. I believe it provides the necessary ending for both the book and the project-as-a-whole (which I am, of course, avoiding any explanation on here; really I'd rather let the book speak for the project). The ending also opens up the direction of my current project (there are a few texts that have been published that exist in this new project, but I've been much more reticent with the work for now).

I think part of the 'inner turmoil' I'm encountering as of late has a lot to do with the desire to "move on" but recognizing I can't fully do that until I both finish things and make the necessary preparations for what's to come: I say this beyond just the art projects (Experimental Men being an astounding microcosm of this entire idea), but also the body-work I've been doing. It's the desire to move on to the next thing without successfully incorporating what I'm trying to finish. I've felt the urge to write something on this blog for a few weeks now and I wasn't totally sure why, but turns out that what I needed to do is just arrive at this point: I need to both finish things up to a level of closure, incorporate what I've learned, and actually let myself consider the prep work an important part of what's to come. Not to get entirely vague here (which I am), but this feels really necessary.

I've felt an urge to return to the yoga studio more often lately, and this seems related: yoga is the physical practice that connects internally much more directly than the rest of my physical work right now: this is of course the nature of yoga, and not inherently the nature of acrobatics, hand balancing, weight training or flexibility. I need to do the work to let the inner and the outer get back in touch.