"You Deserve This, You Do Not Deserve This"

"You Deserve This, You Do Not Deserve This"

Normally I hate to write Artist Statements but, I think the driving forces of this ought to be known being that this is the first honest piece of art I think I have made in a while if not ever made and I want that honesty more forthright than attempted in this piece.

The title arrived from letters from my ex-girlfriend. I found one she had written to me last summer congratulating me on my first chapbook of poetry. She wrote "You deserve this." About three weeks ago (after being apart for nearly 8 months) we got in a fight and she said "I do not deserve this." We are no longer talking, but that is besides the point.

The idea is that we deserve to be the type of person we become because we allow ourselves to be that person and the backlash of our actions however, we do not always deserve. If anything we deserve to be pardoned from time to time, when appropriate that is.

In addition to the notion of what is "deserved" I have realized and maybe always knew what a narcissist I am but was always too afraid to admit my vanity. So to some effect I deserve this, and to another effect I feel as though I do not deserve what is sometimes out my control. And this is where I go on a tangent:

Facebook and the powers that be have created a network of narcissists and I am clearly apart of it and a contributor however, it is not what I initially desired and I am not so sure I got what I deserved. I thought it would be a great thing to be able to connect to friends and see what they were up to if I was not in the same physical space. For a while that was working and that was satisfying, it also allowed for: being spammed by an onslaught of photos, time consumption, time wasted, conversations never to be had in person, invitations to events I could care less about, invitations to participate in virtual games in a virtual world , and virtual surveys about now virtual people.

So why am I still apart of this network? Namely, fear and anxiety of a loss of connection and also that I am so utterly and painfully addicted to people. Now, this is where I should probably say, 'Because I am holier than thou, I will delete Facebook once and for all!' Who the fuck am I kidding? I am stuck in the trap that is my generation, I am too cynical to change it, and too weak to remove myself from it. No, I am not taking the role of victim, I am taking the role of a conscious member, observer, and am merely advocating for some discussion of opinion. Please, let's talk.

Oh yeah and about that art piece...to my ex-girlfriend, my apologies, my face got the better of me.