Delighted to share Jeff Bursey’s interview with me about Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press), which was published by 3:AM Magazine today! Big thanks to Jeff—a superb writer in his own right—for the insightful comments and compelling questions about my book! Thanks, too, to Andrew Gallix and the team at 3:AM Magazine for publishing our conversation!
Here’s an excerpt:
Ice melt at the poles, sea level risings, landfill mountains oozing tons of toxicity into coastal waters, yes, and then there are the insect apocalypse and the drought-induced tree die-off, and more and likely worse to come; but there’s also the radical imagination, that vital continuum of possibility, of being and becoming, all of which is to say, while it’s easy to despair, especially considering the world’s human-caused ills and catastrophes, I choose to remain, as best I can, within a zone of celebration and gratitude. Yes, despair is easy: a form of escape that, ironically enough, only returns us to where we already were: stuck in the muck of sterility, of the humdrum, of the unimaginative, uninspired, uninventive. Let us be courageous instead. Let us instead surrender ourselves to the subversive imagination, that vital, marvelous zone of love, creativity, mystery, invention, renewal, joy, community, of great potentiality, and much more besides.
And finally, if you’re an artist, or anyone else who deliberately hurls themselves toward mysteries, uncertainties, instabilities, toward darkness and the seemingly unspeakable, you are, in these trying times—and it’s always trying times; and if you don’t believe me, listen to Donny Hathaway’s impassioned “Tryin’ Times”—likely sometimes, maybe even often swimming in or through a sea of fear, confusion, and/or despondency, whether internal or external. And what I want to say to you is the following: First, and not to sound like the chorus of a cheesy eighties rock song, all we have is each other, and not only is that a lot, it’s everything. And second, you make the thing not because it will be seen, heard, loved, or otherwise appreciated, etc. You make the thing because the thing must be made. You do the thing because it must be done. You say the thing because it must be said. You share the thing because it must be shared. Et cetera. The obstacles to making, doing, saying, sharing, etc., are sometimes maybe even oftentimes enormous. It’s hardest, I think, when those you love, who say they love you, don’t see, hear, love, and/or otherwise appreciate the thing you’ve made, etc. But you made it because it had to be made. You did it because it had to be done. You said it because it had to be said. Your job is done. That is, it’s time to begin again. That is, it’s time to begin making, doing, saying, etc., the next thing that must be made, done, said, etc. And finally, please, please daily take some time to turn off the noise, whether internal or external, and discover what is there in the fertile silence of yourself, which is nothing, that is, emptiness, which is everything, that is, a marvelous place beyond hope and fear, greed and hostility, attachment and aversion, what Thomas Moore calls a “dark luminosity,” which is simply love by another name.
With you through the chaos.
Read the rest of the interview HERE!
JOHN MADERA—Writer, Editor, Publisher 