The Sun Cut Flat

To quote the soulful Greg Allman, "...two, three, fo..."

"We are our choices," said the actor Ethan Hawke in a recent article, and that short phrase has been swimming around with me for a month or so. Choices. Like deciding in the moment to go on that side of the tree on my snowboard - not really able to see where I was heading exactly - and pop out at the top of a small, tilted meadow of untouched snow, soft as down, bottomless... Swoop, flick, swoop and then repeat... swoop... Or stay late at the studio working on a piece that looks like nothing I have ever made before… having really no clue what was happening with this pattern thing of triangles. And it sold in one day to a friend I just happened to text it to. Less than 24 hours from mystery to sold. Choices. Like the guys on Reddit banding together to drive up a stock price 1,700%. I hope they chose to sell already. Or Tom Moore in England deciding to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday and then proceeding to raise 32 million pounds sterling for national healthcare during the pandemic. The Queen chose to knight him. He says he didn't choose to be a hero. He just wanted to help out.

Well, Ethan Hawke's words resonated until I realized they took me back to a philosophy class a thousand years ago. Those words are Jean-Paul Sartre's basis for the whole school of existentialism. You are what you do, not what you say you are. Your existence is based on your actions, not on your notion of your personal "essence." "I am a product of my decisions, not my conditions," said Jeff Bezos at a commencement address a few years ago. "Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you," Monsieur Sartre again. 

However, a friend told me long ago, "What you believe is true, either is true or will become true, within certain physical limitations." I always took the last phrase to mean I probably won't grow wings from my shoulders if I thought I should fly. But, thanks Laurie Hare, my dear friend who has known me since birth, for giving me a precept for living that I have held for years as Truth. And yet, how do these fit together? What I believe? The choices I make? Three things:

"Perhaps it's the color of the sun cut flat

And covering the crossroads I'm standing at,

Or maybe it's like the weather or something like that,

But, mama, you been on my mind."  

Bob Dylan is owning, in his perfectly Dylanesque way, the concept of not really understanding the nature of the moment or which path is the right path but knowing that the power is the gist of the thing, the feeling right then, being present, being mindful. Is it the light or the color or the weather or "something like that...?" Choices. Crossroads.

And then there was Bryan Cranston's moment of going from a bit player doing random commercials in Hollywood to cult hero and actor of peerless reputation. He changed from focusing on outcome to focusing on the process of acting. He devoted himself to being the best possible version of the character he was presenting. He left Bryan behind. Luck is the residue of passion and steady work. Being on the field at the right moment... Being ready, for luck to occur...

And thirdly, Andy Warhol said, "If there's ever a problem, I film it and it's no longer a problem. It's a film." Reframe. Choose the other door. Problems don't have to be problems. They could be art. Choices.

Sartre was awarded the Nobel prize and he refused to accept it. He thought it might affect how people addressed his writings. Dylan also did not accept his Nobel prize saying he had other engagements, although he sent his lifelong friend Patti Smith as a stand in. He defined his sense of freedom. Choices. This side of the tree or that. That tool on the surface or this. Buy. Sell. Walk to and fro. Luck. Knighthood. Or a Nobel. Or an Oscar. Or a lovely four syllables... "The sun cut flat..."

"We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us." This is a quote from Andrew Ryan, who, I discovered, is a fictional dictator in the video game BioShock.  Probably not going to get a Nobel. But, he is right. You are what you believe you are, and you are the actions that make that the truth.

I believe that you, my friends, need visionary art. I believe this is the moment you have waited for. I believe that you have not lost my email. (It's right down there).

And I believe in how lucky we both are to be surrounded by all this, all this sun cut flat...

As always, love each other as much as you can possibly stand.

Stay in touch,

B Mac

P.S. The following is light cut flat and still poking out. It's my job after all. Take some home.

P.P.S. The stuff up there about love, I really mean that.