Jackson Pollock-brain

i learned something. i learned it last weekend. i think i may have already "known" it, but you know how it goes - some things you can't actually know until you're there. for instance, when i was in school, i "knew" that it would be hard to find a well-paying job with a humanities degree, but now i actually know it.

i learned last weekend that fears and assumptions, no matter how well-founded they might be, come up against a particular and unavoidable challenge when spoken out loud (or written). also, the longer the fears and assumptions go unspoken, the more they are challenged when they are spoken. i think that's because the longer things live only in our heads, the more we distort them. they may have looked like a Dorothea Lange when they went in, but they come out looking like a Jackson Pollock.

that's why it's important that we not let things live only in our minds for too long. not that there's anything wrong with Jackson Pollock, it's just that clarity, at least for me, is an important something when it comes to how i view the world around me.

and if we're being candid, which we are, because i'm the only one here, i've realized even more, how important it is that i write here - it keeps things from living only in my head for too long. even if no one reads it, at least mostly-formed thoughts on paper are more easily judged than less-formed thoughts floating around in my head.

therefore, speak to people, write to people, or even speak or write to no one. it's all better than having a Jackson Pollock-brain.