obligations as a source of existence

yes, limiting my obligations has been a way of life. no children, no career, no matrimony. at this point it seems rather strange. most of my friends have kept themselves busy. first school, then kids, then finding something to do after the house empty. though everybody loves a vacation, too much idle time weighs on one's hands. as has been said, "people yearn for an eternal life who don't know what to do with themselves on a sunday afternoon. "

true, i have had routines, many of them. in the greece of the 1960's i laid on the beach, drank wine, hiked the island, and chased women. this doesn't mean i didn't have bleak moments. eventually the romance of the famous and beautiful village of lindos on the island of rhodes wore off. the alleyways grew grim and the tourists tawdry. to re-stoke my fires i made for berlin. 

that's what i mean. in place of challenges on the job or in the home always shifting, i had to put my peddle to the metal. and without a little bit of difference in each day, i fall into desuetude. for the past month i've been shifting coffee shops. drinking caffeine, taking a few pics, and surveying the passing scene. plus, weather too gorgeous for februaryhas kept me going. i've signed up for african art history and history of art in the early 20th century. unfortunately they are both on tuesday, a long day of sitting.

and sitting is what i'm finding hard to do right now. four days ago i had a hydro-cele reduced. for those who care to know: fluid gathering in the sack around a testicle. starting as a chicken egg  grew into a goose egg. i decided not to wait for the football. the outpatient surgery a piece of cake. alas, now comes the waiting. i've never been good at standing in line. and especially not since i've found my power of reading reduced.

i got through about sixty years doing it. and as cicero said, always have a book with you and read everywhere. once i actually read a huge chunk of dostoyevsky and i got through coast guard boot camp reading thomas mann's joseph and his brothers, two thick volumes. in those days retreating to the library my action of choice. even today walking through a big library calms me down, like a ramble by the ocean. 

having missed being an artist, i shifted to photography and digital art. my site on the web has 35,000 pictures and over four million people have visited it: 

wayne pease's Photo Galleries at pbase.com

 so, i kept myself busy for fifteen years running around taking a making pictures, spending a fortune on upgrading my cameras. at last the gas ran out of that and i sold all the high-priced stuff and satisfied myself with a couple of smart phones. of course, i don't have the illusion of being a professional, which i enjoyed for a long time. 

i guess this is all about keeping busy so i don't worry about mortality. being cut into makes me all-too-mortal once again. i want to run out for a cup of coffee, walk in the nearby park, go to a movie. the time will return. someone said, success is spending time as you wish. i agree, but sometimes the minutes grow  longer, even as life grow shorter. 

is all art pornography?

i've always resisted this point of view. now i'm not so sure. john berger claims every classic nude created by men for men, women the plaything desired. i'd hoped art would add a subtlety not reduced to mere exploitation and desire. in the age of advertising every thing's meant to sell me something, and every work of art, at one time or another, has been used to do so.

what makes sex such a hot commodity? is it merely the inheritance of puritanism? human reproduction not sacred enough? i tend to think we live in a world so highly structured with goods, house, streets, jobs, we're afraid to move too spontaneously. it may cost us our jobs, our family, our reputation. and sex the most powerful tool to throw us out of orbit.

at this moment in time many men honored for their creativity and power being dethroned by women accusing them of sexual misconduct. in many cases the men condemned as guilty without any trial: their pictures pulled from museums, their images as movie moguls and fun objects of entertainment toppled from their expensive pedestals. 

and here's where a definition of prostitution might be useful, i.e. selling the use of your body for profit. and i wonder in how many cases these women gained work and stardom by doing just this, letting them be used to sell movies, cars, dresses, paintings? and historically, an argument could be made prostitutes create fashion, if not today's, tomorrow's. 

who was it said american men so obsessed with work the women have to entice them away? and one friend came back from working in africa, amazed at the sexualization of our whole culture. and how can art be separated from it? i suppose one could say art creates a sense of peacefulness instead of desire. or, as in the religious past, it lifted one's mood from the trials and tribulations of being human. 

and yes, it was used to put spells on people, to cure them or to kill them. and that hasn't really changed. unfortunately, by making all art pornographic, it's more alleviating aspects get lost. and then when one stumbles onto a genuine  porn sight on the Internet, one is stuck by the pure animality of it, the lack of finesse. is art this defense of our losing control of ourselves?

as a long-life lover of art, a wanderer in the great museums and galleries of the world, i can't helped being alarmed by the renewal of censorship. politics and morality take a lot of humor and fun out of life. to reduce the graciousness to mere seduction, what does that do to us?