I should get out more. I should watch more classics. I should read more. I should read more real philosophy rather than making up my own. Or not. I should do ovarian kung fu. I should paint my bathroom. Red, or green? I should cut my cat’s toenails. I should sew new ideas out of recycled clothes. I should be more consistent in my principles and actions. I should do half the things I spend time thinking I should be doing. I should stop thinking, at least about nothing. I should not judge the intentions and intelligence of my fellow humans. I should meditate more. I should go to Burning Man next year. I should look around me and at least admire and enjoy the stuff I do have, while I have it, before I give it all away or it burns in a fire or gets faded by the years. I should be less shy and meet more people. Or should I? When I lie in bed I shouldn’t think about all the things I think I should be doing, I should just enjoy lying there in the emptiness of it all instead of trying to be creative about how it feels or what it stirs. I should use less water when washing dishes and brushing my teeth. I should keep my lights off when I am not using them, but first I should find out if it is really true that you use more energy by turning on a light than by leaving it on. Anyways, I should definitely have my own buy nothing day once a month and my own waste nothing day once a week until the routine becomes habitual. I should sign up for French classes and practice more regularly, much more, je sais. I should volunteer with dying children because the thought alone makes my heart sink, but in a good way – the kind of way that makes me realize beyond thought that I am alive. I should think about what I am going to do for Johnny’s show. I should practice, but first I should make something to practice. I should go to the studio tomorrow and have a good attitude and I should be grateful to all the micro-intersections and nano-moments that have conspired to form this life I am living now. I shouldn’t apologize for being an artist, I should recognize its privilege. I should take a run in the mountain, I should run in the mountain every other day. I should make slides and do that exhibit I want to do of juxtaposed images. I should make that other piece with the wishing pool, and the other one where the projected person dances along the wrinkles of a room. I should dance naked in the rain on a full moon and howl on a new one. I should go out and video strangers living life just to see how others do it. And I should thank them after. I should leave poetry in magazines and seashells in waiting rooms. I should perform more acts of random kindness. I should make that heart.
