feeling the cold

When I was a child, living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I used to like to go outside when the snow as thick and deep on the ground, in just shorts and a t-shirt, and lay in the snow. It felt good, feeling the powder compress under me, the cold turning to wet cold against my skin, and the sense of my heat draining from me. I know that had I laid out there for too long, there could have been adverse consequences, but I was never that stupid. I enjoyed the sensation of being alive it invoked in me.

I have lingered too long in a cold place, and must return to the heat, if I can find it again.

One of my favourite characters in cinema is Joe Gideon, the avatar of Bob Fosse that should have won Roy Scheider an Academy Award. He's a creative artist who has allowed his art to consume him, destroying his humanity, as he becomes more and more addicted to the energy he gets from his disastrous life to fuel his creativity...his only source of joy remaining.

I was reading the transcript of O'Connor Flood's remarks as he presides over Joe's death in the finale of All That Jazz and it occurred to me...I'm not Joe Gideon, but I was always afraid of being like him:

"Folks, what can I tell you about my next guest?

This cat allowed himself to be adored, but not loved.

And his success in show business was matched by failure in his personal-relationship bag.

Now that's where he really bombed.

And he came to believe that work, show business, love, his whole life, even himself, and all that jazz, was bullshit.

He became numero uno game player, to the point where he didn't know where the games ended and reality began.

Like, to this cat, the only reality...is death, man.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me lay on you a so-so entertainer, not much of a humanitarian, and this cat was never nobody's friend.

In his final appearance on the great stage of life - you can applaud if you wanna -"

It's like running through a bog, but...I have to want it bad enough to deserve to get back on track. The character of Joe Gideon gave up too easily. It is easy for the creative artist to become self-absorbed and self-destructive. I've avoided almost all of the traps, but in order to really take it to the next level, I need an external energy source again. I am sapped.

And while I can, from moment to moment, find reserves, they are fleeting things and it is damaging to rely on the stored emotions I have banked so much of. I could list a thousand here, each more potent a source of power than any weapon or machine made of the hands of mortal men.

And yes, I am afraid that if I ressurect the machine without some joy outside of myself, outside of the creative process, it will overpower me, becoming a juggernaut dedicated to its own power, rather than the earnest, if impaired, path I have charted for it. Too many compromises. No more. No more.

We shall see what happens.