If one can reconcile the experience of opposing feelings then this will all work out fine. I sent the better part of last week traveling for my employ and securing my security for the impending economic FAIL. The company I work for, the one so kind to provide me with income to pay rent and buy lentils, recently got purchased by a realistic owner and more capable leaders. I was immediately identified as a key player in having kept the business alive up to day of the transaction, and as such I was awarded opportunity, one of which was a salary negotiation.

I scored very well, particularly well in consideration of the current unemployment figures. Yet, last night as I lie in anticipation of sleep, I began to cry in frustration that my life had partially become something about everything I generally stand against. Overtime, big business, exhaustion.

Fuck me for being the man with the candy apple walking past the unemployment line, right?

I suppose necessity is winning here, and desire has hit the Sterno flame. As I walked down the sidewalk after being dropped off from the airport, I told myself that I just need to do all of this in an art state of mind… keep my dream alive, and keep the ideas sizzling. But, when you have to convince yourself at night that thinking about your employ stimulates no progress before bedtime, you can’t help but recognize how many more times throughout your day that would ring true as well. Especially when art is your panacea, the ultimate cipher, for all of life’s experiences.

Recognition for hard work is excellent, and my checkbook and my stomach both laud my efforts of ingenuity and expense-slashing… I look forward to buying a whole chicken (not a bottle of champagne) and roasting it in celebration… but my heart warns me to keep focus on the real prize here.

If nothing else, this persnickety situation is an enigma: a reductive/minimal artist gains a promotion, and proportionally higher funding in his weekly stipend. His weekly free time is now reduced and he is frustrated about making art. If minimalism is about reduced means and expanded ends, the great comedy here is being forced to produce under a shorter clock. Is it possible to preserve quality and energy translated when you’re exhausted and already overworked?

Do not provide an answer as foil to my imaginable cloak.