Outofstress.com

Your CB Walkie Talkie Cell Phone Conversation Is My Meditation

I am an artist, and spend much of my time drawing and painting.  I sometimes have fantasies about being a different kind of artist – about being an artist who makes work that directly responds to the society I live in and walk around in.

So, to the guy sitting behind me on the bus, talking loudly into his 2 way walkie talkie, I want to make an art piece about you.  I can hear both sides of your conversation, so I know where you are going and what you will be doing.  I am planning to not only record the conversation you are having and use it in my art piece, but to follow you to your destination since I know where it is.  To the woman next to me on this same bus, now that I know your social security number, I think I’ll take up a new identity  - how about yours? and then make an art piece about how i ruined your life.and the the girl talking about her boyfriend problems, honey, just get out.  No art in that one.

So we’ve all been on that bus.  That bus with the talkers, the whiners, the crazies, the complainers, the laughers, the criers.  And sure, you could sit and have a fantasy about making an art piece, you could laugh about the whole thing, you could cry or you could just shrug it off.  Or, you could make it your meditation.

To the man on the two way – I go beyond your conversation and I remember I am lucky to live in a world where we are able to have such free conversations. To the woman, I go beyond your personal data, and I recognize we are all one unified people, living together. To the girl, I go beyond your personal problems, and I value each relationship I have with each person I know.  And on my bus, I go beyond frustration, I go beyond worry, I go beyond stress, and I make a choice to ride the bus with the fullest consciousness I have.

And I hear your murmerings, and I love them, I really do, and I remember to go beyond this one bus ride, to go beyond this one day, this one event, this one time in my life, and as I see the bridge in my field of vision, I am reminded of the largeness and wholeness that life has.  And in remembering this largeness, this wholeness, I am one with the bus, with the two way radio conversation, with myself as an artist, and with you my friend.