The trouble is, I've been thinking, and other than the Tetractys, (which would be pretentious, as I'm not really a Pythagorean) what I really want most of all, is a tattoo of nothing.
I'm willing to take this to a John Cage level of going to a tattoo parlour and 'getting' an entirely empty tattoo 'engraved' on my arm; spending my own 4 minutes, 33 seconds, of thinking about which of the infinite possible variations of tattoo I could have.
4'33'' is one of those growers, I have found. right now, it's probably in my top ten favourite pieces of music of all time, no joke. not because of the simplistic reasons that you originally think are the point when you first here of the idea - that it's 'just as arbitary a piece of music as any other', but the freshness of your listening that your ears are heightened to when they're instructed to listen gives so much meaning to all the little things you can hear. when I close my eyes, all of a sudden my ears realy switch on, and I'm aware of so much more than I thought I was. 4'33'' does that to you, with your eyes open.
mindfullness is a bollocks fad right now, but from times like this, or when I've tried meditating and tried to be aware of every sensation in every part of my body, I know what the original point of it was. It's being concious of everything that passes through your brain - impossible, but progress towards the ideal is achiveable.
Back to the tattoo, another interpretation would be to have a square of random noise engraved on my arm. that would be just as arbitary, and just as meaningless.
4'33'' is one of those growers, I have found. right now, it's probably in my top ten favourite pieces of music of all time, no joke. not because of the simplistic reasons that you originally think are the point when you first here of the idea - that it's 'just as arbitary a piece of music as any other', but the freshness of your listening that your ears are heightened to when they're instructed to listen gives so much meaning to all the little things you can hear. when I close my eyes, all of a sudden my ears realy switch on, and I'm aware of so much more than I thought I was. 4'33'' does that to you, with your eyes open.
mindfullness is a bollocks fad right now, but from times like this, or when I've tried meditating and tried to be aware of every sensation in every part of my body, I know what the original point of it was. It's being concious of everything that passes through your brain - impossible, but progress towards the ideal is achiveable.
Back to the tattoo, another interpretation would be to have a square of random noise engraved on my arm. that would be just as arbitary, and just as meaningless.
Perhaps another way to look at it is how sometimes a little noise can define silence. Sometimes I long to hear music that sounds like something barely more than silence, as another way to appreciate the lack of things. Analogously, perhaps an empty frame on my skin would work; or just an angle of a square, not even completely connected up. Perhaps a frame, but pointing outwards, so that my entire body outside the definition is the tattoo.
Or perhaps, just another way to represent a blank space, such as the symbol for the empty set, or my old "%20" tshirt. A defined lack of something.
So is what I'm effectively saying, then, that my mindset has reverted to that of a 24 year old?
