Insomnia Thoughts

Insomnia has been my bed mate for the last week and that might be in part due to my persisting jet lag but it might also be do to my hyperactive brain. Do you ever get that way? When you just think about this, that and the other thing in what seems to be ceaseless linking and segways? When thoughts about the meaning of life, the interactions you had that day and the article you just read keep repeating themselves in redundant and at times elucidating ways? Of course you do, we all do at times and this is the state I've been in almost every night this past week.  Me in bed with eyes closed trying to pretend myself to sleep. In light of this insomniatic state, I am going to take this opportunity to try to expel some of these thoughts out of my head so that maybe, just maybe I can get a good night’s sleep. So here goes in no consequential order or relationship:

Meditation – People are really into meditation at the moment. Why is that? I think that maybe we are all just searching for some means to cope with things and also I think it is the new next level thing and trend to attest your struggle with existence in a certain type of way. A while ago being a depressive was en vogue, even more recent the idea of sensitivity and introversion were. These are type B, anti-socialized personality groups whose perhaps declared membership within offsets you from the cruel, oppressive world. Or maybe I’m being too harsh in this view; maybe we are all just saddies trying to get by. Anyways, meditation is pretty amazing and if it’s a way to cope with all this angst and anxiety involved with this whole living thing then mantra, mindfulness yourselves away.

Charlie Hebdo – It’s a terrible situation but one that I can’t even bare to participate in as it speaks of a continuing trend of trauma fetish which is making me sick in the guts about our hysteria mob instincts. This article on Paper Bird made me feel at least not in a desert of this thought and they did it way better then I could. People, let’s think before skydiving into trending rhetoric.

Words that I just don’t want to see for a long time – Trigger(ed), Neo-Liberal, psychoanalysis(analytic), Quotidian, Post-Internet.

Things that I wish would just stop in the art world – Hyperallergic, Paddle8, Sotheby’s Institute, celebrity art, gallery owned restaurants, boring panels, boring lectures, boring performance art, boring bores, museum twitter feeds, museum everything feeds, illusion of avant-garde, mostly female staff in contrast to mostly male rosters, lack of people of color, rich people’s social club, bad blog art writing, usurpation of liberal politics, misogynists in power, snobby kids with pocketed parents art-slumming it, sky miles.

Things that I wish there was more of in the art world – A new/expanded form of e-flux, more arts funding for galleries and artists, outdoor gallery work zones, dinner parties in people’s homes, more Mike Kellys, more John Baldessari, more Louies Bourgeois, more Paula Coopers, influential art critics, symposiums, maternity and work laws, transparency.

Caffeine – I’ve discovered I am allergic to caffeine and in this discovery I have been reading a lot about it found out that caffeine is evil for those that are allergic to it. It can make you think you are cuckoo-bananas and this allergy has many of the same symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks and also feelings of bodily dislocation. If you are having anxiety or panic attacks I recommend cutting out caffeine to see if that might not be a cause or the cause.  The body is a strange, strange thing.

Neuroaesthetics – This is what I am basically obsessed and buried eye ball deep in at the moment. Like it is making my brain pop and sizzle. The brain is amazing and how it relates and effects art, perception and subjectivity is knocking my socks off. Can’t even, it’s that engrossing.

Time Zone – Why does the planet have to be round and spin and make it so that time one place is a different time another place? I know it has to be and know why but it is such a mind trip to think about time and reality of time in that sort of way. Also thinking about others in other time zones is a mind mess as well. The basics and structure of their living and your living are not overlapping but hinged at different points. How that effects matters of the heart is something very much on my mind.

London Art – Things seem so striated here in terms of art worlds and their mingling. There seems to be specific tiers and groups that do not overlap as much as they do in other places (I’m thinking specifically of New York, LA and Berlin). Maybe it’s the topographic distance of things. Maybe it’s England’s obsession with class. Not sure yet but it seems self-defeating and dulling perhaps.

Organic Food – I’m a spoiled food cooperative brat, which likes my veggies diverse, fresh and local, as well as having an easily accessible variety of dietary surprises and essentials. I am not happy about my situation in London in regards to this. Where is the Ginger-Aid Kombucha? Where is the nutritional yeast? Where I ask? WHERE?

Cold – It is less cold in London then it is in New York. It is less cold in New York then it is in Chicago. Knowing this I am still always cold and I can’t imagine being sweaty ever, ever again.

Sauna – Speaking of sweating how does London not have a Korean Spa? It should be illegal to not have a Korean spa in a major city. I think I have found a Turkish one. I am seriously looking up “spas London” in my phone like every other night. Need the detox heat, right now.  
Out of sight, Out of Mind – I seriously think I’m some sort of small furry animal as I truly have difficulty and/or interest in things that are not in my current purview mentally or physically. Like I just don’t care. Is that normal? Not sure but it’s actually sort of a relief in some ways.