It's absolutely terrifying to me. I mean, to the point where I effectively "shut-down" mentally and cycle through a thought process of anxiety, panic, dread, and sorrow until i finally hit exhaustion and have to sleep. It's not neccesarily the idea of death itself, the concept itself is actualy romantic in a mysterious and forbidden sort of way. It's moreso everything surrounding death.

It's the pain, it's the slow decline into it, and it's the mystery of "what comes next?" Is it nothingness? Is it eternal suffering? Is it eternal pleasure? What if it's a repeat without memory? All of those, to me, sound like hell in their own special way. I mean, think about it. Suffering is obvious, but eternal pleasure? If you took all strife out of life what would you get? I'll tell you what, boredom. Unending, cylical, and subtley sadistic boredom.

Nothingness? Well, that's just oblivion. I mean, imagine going from something to nothing, try... you can't, and i bet there's a good reason for that! I bet it's not pleasant! I mean, try to think about what it was like before you were born. About the time before you saw light, felt joy, sorrow, anger, pain... anything. Yeah, you're probably feeling anxious now, right? I know I am!

Now, reincarnation without memory is perhaphs the most merciful of the options, but also not desireable. I mean, to get to suffer through life all over again without improving upon yourself, or remembering any of this? It all sorta seems pointless, doesn't it? At least it does to me. In fact, every option seems milions of times worse when you consider the fact that reality will ventually "stop". I mean, everything, everything, will eventually be consumed by a singular blackhole.

I'll confess too, I'm mostly curious to see if anyone else shares this fear with me. I assume people must since we've the need for religion and afterlifes, but i suppose that's not the same as my fear. To me religion is like telling someone afraid of heights "don't look down" and expecting them to no longer be scared.

Furthermore, it's my beleif that it peope fully beielved in an afterlife thanks to their religion that they'd be 100% okay and comfotable with dying, but yet people still try to cling to life for as long as possible. They cling to it even if it means suffering. That's something that baffles me even more than simply having beleif in a religion, is to choose the pain of life over the peace of an eternal heaven.

I think most people use religion as their coping mechanism with death, and for those who aren't religious (myself) must be one of three things; spiritual in some other way, absolutely terrified of death (like myself), or completely psychotic in some regard (not medically, I'm not trying to insult anyone.)

I mean, you've either got to have your own personal reservations about an afterlife, be terrified of the nothingness, or first have absolutely no care or value or even regard for your own life in order to thus be okay with nothingness.

How do I cope? Honestly, I don't think about it. I tell mysef a white lie like "but ghosts exist" or try to use science such as "energy doesn't just disappear, and that's what we are..." but it doesn't work very well, just temporarily.

Perhaphs it's just extreme nihilism mixed with overwhelming despair, or the product of living in a world where all the knowledge I'd need is in the palm of my hands. Regardless, one thing is certain. An idle mind is the devil's workshop, as long as "devil" means "an extisential crisis" haha. (See? I can make jokes too, now lighten up will ya?)

An empty page is just that, empty, an infinite sea of white in all directions. It frightens me, horrifies me. So many possibilities, so many mistakes to be made and wasted hours. So many restless nights and cups of coffee, both burned and cold. It's the promise of something, sure, but is that a promise worth making? What if something is worse than nothing? You can always bring an end to nothing, but you can't always undo something.

Is that why we fear? Fear death, fear the dark, fear the uncertainty of a barren field or a dessert road leading nowhere? Perhaphs it's just the wanderings of a madman, or the musings of a fool. Perhpahs it's the art of a blind man, or maybe, just maybe, a glimpse of truth from a liar.

Bah! It's rubbish is what it is, at it's best anyways. To fear possibilty? What a foolish fear. Sure, safety lies with nothing, there's a certain... certanity about it. But so too is there a certainty with illness or war or death, the certainty of pain. Just because the pain is predictable doesn't make it any better, it doesn't make it right, it just makes it expected.

Possibility, well, that's the unexpected. Why settle for the certainty of pain or nothingness when uncertainty may hold for us joy or laughter or hope? I no longer fear uncertainty, no longer fear possibility. That is no longer the reason for my page being blank. The reason for that would be a different fear entirely, the fear of wasting my possibility, my chance.

Of course, there's a greater fear at hand here. My own fear of the nothingness that lies in wait. You see, while the somethings we create may never vanish, not truly, we eventually do. We are both blessed and cursed with not having to see the things we create live on forever. We are doomed to nothingness, to that infinite white, to being blank.

Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means an "expert" in what art is and isn't. I don't have any degrees in it whatsoever, and the extent of my artistry usually ends somewhere in the zones of "school projects" and "gifts for friends/myself."

However, that being said, I do still have expereince with art. I am an artist, just like any other people who have submitted a peice onto this website, have made an orignal drawing or painting, have sung in the shower and changed the notes or a key for a song- whatever. Regardless of what some person with a degree says you are an artist. Anybody can be an artist, and art is really, REALLY easy to make!

Now, that being said, GOOD art is a whole other story! It's a subjective term, based upon peronal emotions and past expereinces, it's based on personal interpretation of the meaning both as an artist and as an audience member, and it's really what i like to describe as "wishy-washy" at best.

So, review- anyone can be an artist, and that's because making art is really easy... BUT, making good art is hard, it's complicated and requires creativity, innovation, technique and skill- it's complicated, "wishy-washy", remember? So then why is art without purpose NOT art? Let me walk you through it.

Both Oxford and Merriam-Webster's dictionaries describe art as "Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power."

What I gather from that is that, regardless of the reason for making it, you've got to just that- a reason. Art, true art, isn't just made for the hell of it. There is a reason to th artist as to why they're making the art, whether it's a concious or sub-concious thought process that's occuring.

Architects don't just design a building because "it's a building", they do it to provide shelter, to meet certain needs, and to fulfill a contract's desires at the bare minimum. When you doodle in class or a buisness meeting (don't get caught now!) you're not just doing it "because you're bored", well, you sorta are! But it's more because what's going on in your head is more interesting than what's happening around you.

Think about what specifically you're drawing next time, or maybe if you're a vocalist think about why you sing the notes a certain way and why you like that song. Writer's, we have it easy, just read the words you're writing! There is meaning in all of these things, and as long as you're consciously aware of this or you're using techniques while you do it, then you're making art.

So, can anything even be considered not art?? YES! When you wake up, when you make cereal, when you talk to friends/family, when you go walking or to the gym- those are just mundane tasks that you're doing because of obligation. Art is a hobby, a luxary even. It isn't required to live, but makes living valuable.

So when I see "art" peices such as Onement by Barnett Newman, Blood Red Mirror by Gerhard Richter, Concetto spaziale, Attese by Lucio Fantano, Untitled (1970) by Cy Twombly, Untitled (Stoffbid) by Blinky Palermo, Orange, Red, Yellow by Mark Rothco, Untitled (1961) by Mark Rothco, Untitled (Blue and Yellow) by Mark Rothco, and so many more blank or solid-color canvasas with nothing more than a signular line or a singular block of color sprinked in somewhere.

What's even worse is that, as you could see, even the titles were unispired! I mean, how many times can you simply refuse to name a peice of art and pawn it off for millions (looking at you Mark Rothco)! Oh, and you read correctly, they're selling these things off for millions of dollars. I'm not critiquing the entirety of the modernism field of art, nor the postmodernism, but I am criticising the lack of a message or meaning within a peice of art.

Typically the point of modernism or postmodernism was to serve as a critique against the standards of art, but you also have to understand that those critiques were warranted for the time period. Like i said earlier, anything can be art, but not everything can be good art. Good art, and the value of all art, is a societal construct whcih changes with the times. What's happening here though is that the minority of the world, the very upper echelons of wealth and prosparity, are simply throwing money at "art" due to the idea of gaining respect and praise from association with the owning of the work.

The problem doesn;t occur, however, until we remember that these "art works" are barely even that. When we allow peope in power to decide what's good and what's bad for us, it shifts the whole playing field. It changes what art gets made aftrwards, and what people strive to acheive. It influences societ as a whole. So having art that's "up for personal interpretation" or is "serving as a critique" yet holds no meaning or statment other than that isn't some level of grand and higher thinking- it's a scam. We're encouraging people to produce scams.

Now, perhaphs there is a message but it's just not clear to most people. Sure, but isn't an essential skill of any artist to be the translator or interpretor of an art peice? I know we're focused n painting right now, but think about books and literature. If someone wrote the next great work of literature, surpassing all of the greatest books you can think of, it wouldn't matter if it was written in a secrt coed noone could decipher. More practically, imagine it being written in such a confusing and verbose manner that what could've taken 1 page takes 10 and then multiply that per page.

This may seem dumb or pointless to most, but imagine if this seeped into other art like music, literature, architecture, even fashion. It already has been seeping into all of those art forms! I can't tell you how many fashion runway looks have become different variations on a bag, a bag people. Not a handbag, but a canvas or plastic bag stretched over the skin that people will throw thousands and millions of dollars at thanks to the name tied behind it.

Anyways, I'm truly sorry that this went on for so long. What was supposed to be about five paragraphs at most became so, so, so much longer than intended haha. Well, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!

Peaceful slumber, just reminsce and bliss abound.

A stab, a pain, awake.

Retching, straining, containing.

Heart races and panic sets in, can't look around.

Bare-boned, knees against the floor, head in porcelain.

A groan, a cry, alound.

Aching, purging, unending.

Call for mom but noone hears, back to sleep again.

More pain, more aches, morbid agony and releif.

Pressure gone, pressure back,

Pressure wanes and pressure wax.

Distorted chants ring out in head, still no repreive.

Darkness, shouting, crying, and a bucket.

Hands of flame, bones of ice,

head of ash, mouth of mites.

Bundled, carried, wheeled, now a doctor.

The headlights blind me, the doctor ignores me,

the needle scares me, and the nurse annoys me.

One stab, miss. Two more stabs, two more missed.

Wrists like cloth. Threads shredded, my flesh mist.

Boiling inside, water pumped in, an injection.

Burn, boil, release,

drink, feed, repeat.

Asleep once more, tranquil whimsy, purged infection.