boundaries are sexy (boundaries part 2)

what turns us on

I am here to love, not to consume.
But it's the consumption that turns us on.
It's the consumption that turns us on.
Why can't I turn you on?
Why can't I turn you on?

I didn't come here to write those words. I came here to talk about boundaries part two. 

But these are the words that are turning in me.

Maybe it's because I'm a lady who hasn't had sex in five months and am also ovulating according to my Stardust app.

Ovulation makes me horny, pretty, and prone to pleasure. 

I love it. 

Maybe those are the words turning in me because I'm traveling for work and therefore temporarily within a few hours of two of my exes and I haven't told either of them, though they have their ways of knowing, each of their methods polar opposite from one another. It makes me laugh. 

And stay quiet. 

So maybe I AM getting back around to talking about boundaries....

What I hate about capitalism is that it's the imitation of love that everyone is selling. That bouncing red ball we all think we've gotta chase because we forgot we're actually already carrying it in our pocket. 

So we throw dollars after the red ball in order to put on the jeans that will finally make us lovable. We save up for the house that will validate our existence with structure because we can finally say we "OWN," something. And in the midst of being continually 'on our way', after we buy the jeans or the house, after the hit of ‘enoughness,’ wears off and we are once again searching for more, rarely do we stop to wonder why the bouncing red ball dishonors the laws of nature by bouncing infinitely AWAY from us, and never toward — that is —

until we have to. 

Life has a way of turning us toward the real source of love again and again until we are finally able to recognize it as ourselves, and receive it rather than chase it.

I've sold love my whole career and I'm not ashamed of it. I even joke that I'm in the love business. You see, most of us won't let love in unless it's attached to the price tag we have been taught we must pay in order to get it. 

That's what I've told myself as a rationalization for selling it anyway. To make peace with what I do and how I do it. 

But I don't want to sell love anymore.

I just want to exist as another bag of bones letting the love infinitely flow in and out like the tide. 

You like it? Stick around.

You don't? Move on down the shoreline until the shape of another wave takes you. 

I don't want to speak the language of consumerism in order to entice you toward the ticket. I've ceased trying to convince you that I am more cool or stylish or omnipotent than the next bald-headed lady. 

Ok fine, that's not entirely true. In my hunger for story, I've lived a lot. I’ve accrued some hard won wisdom. Therefore, the library stacks within my personal wisdom are deep, and the ceiling here is so high, one is never quite certain there even is one, i.e. any actual division between my meat suit and the ether —

But anyway, that doesn't serve the point I am trying to make. 

The point I'm trying to make, with my ego delightfully in tact, is this:

Capitalism is tricky. The hunger to constantly consume is tricky. It will have you believing that's all that you are. It will tell you to make your real self forbidden because to constantly withhold is the only way anyone will want you. 

Once you are AVAILABLE. Once you make yourself FREE, or say only $6.99/month to access, the collective conditioned appetite gets bored. We assume we are being duped. 

Need an example?

There's a reason not a whole lot of folx were buyin’ what Jesus was not selling but instead giving freely, not until they saw him die for it.

So then death instead of a pricetag is the flip side???? If we don't want to constantly sell our wares in order to get people to believe us, we gotta prove it by killing ourselves?????? We gotta become martyrs???? We gotta find a cross and let ourselves be HUNG???

My god, and I do mean my god, because don't forget, to me god is ALL, including Jesus, including what he was preaching, so I mean no disrespect when I very emphatically say, NO THANK YOU SIR. SIR, I THANK YOU BUT, NO. 

Here's how I'm seeing these two sides of the worth coin manifest in the digital artist reality. 

It is not enough to be an artist who's work is just really fuqqqing great. So great that it enlivens people. So great that it is the currency of life itself, so we all agree to be wildly grateful that it even exists in the world and we let the artists who have made it know well they did enough. I'd put the book I just read by James Baldwin in this category. I'd put every song sung by Nina Simone in this category.

No, this paradigm seems to be over. And can really only work for the uniquely kissed and radically brave few. 

We call these kind of artists assholes now.

Their work is not enough, no way. We want to eat of their flesh and drink of their blood. We call it a sacrament, and because we believe we still need to be saved, we want to consume them whole.

So we make artists prove their hearts and hold up their crosses. We insist that they show us intimately where they SUFFER. We demand they lead their own cults, oops, I mean communities. We want a response or a heart on every comment we leave (we're lonely, who could blame us?). We only want to become champions of their work if we think that they will in turn be the footprints in the sand walking along side us all this time, invisibly and benevolently holding our trembling hand. 

We call these kind of artists humble. 

And let me just say,

I think I've impersonated Jesus rather well. 

HA.

Which is to say, at various times in my career, I have tried to play the part of this other western paradigm of an artist in a digital space. 

The one who gives and gives and ends up giving so much to their ‘community', they cease giving to their actual art. 

My friends, I have a confession. I'm a much better asshole than I am a martyr. 

And more likeable as one too. 

But lucky me, I have qualities of both. 

I believe we all do.

So is it possible, in our extremist culture, to find, to create, to embody a middle way? 

I dunno. 

I'm trying. 

But I find the collective consciousness is slow to catch on. By god, we recognize the asshole (whore). We recognize the martyr (Madonna). They are the binary archetypes we are used to gathering ourselves around. 

We are confused by and therefore resistant to anything that seems to earthly blend or heavenly transcend the two. 

I believe one of the many great tasks for artists of our time is to reveal together and multiply the archetypes beyond the binary. What delicious, creative diversity we could find there. 

This is the reason it is so important to listen to and learn from those who never had the privilege of passing within the binary's form. 

I have passed, presented and benefitted within the form of the binary, while never quite inwardly aligning. These days I am delightfully embodying the earthly blend and heavenly transcendence I have always felt. 

Here's how I am doing so in this space. Which is the longest winded ever lead up to saying, 

HERE ARE MY BOUNDARIES IN THIS SPACE.

I will give you my art. I will give you my art in various forms including this one.

I will stubbornly — to the point of delusion — believe there is enough life in my art to honor the exchange Jeanette Winterson describes:

The artist does not turn time into money, the artist turns time into energy, time into intensity, time into vision. The exchange that art offers is an exchange in kind; energy for energy, intensity for intensity, vision for vision. This is seductive and threatening. Can we make the return? Do we want to?

And I will give you the lessons of my life in free classes every other month. 

And I will give you one on one attention in Q&A's every month there is not a free class. 

But I will not give you my constant presence. 

Though it has come to be expected of the 'good guys' in digital online culture, I will not be a martyr in this way, because such sacrifice shows in the quality of my time spent with my real life and real relationships. And the sacrifice shows in the quality of the art I try to make. 

I will instead embrace my inner, loving asshole when I tell you that as much as I would like to:

I will not respond to all of your lovely comments. 

I will not answer your thoughtful DMs or emails. 

I know. This stings. Even if we don't admit it, and even if I sound like even MORE of a jerk by assuming this of you, I'm still gonna say that community members all tend to want the attention and personal nod of the artist/community leader. Me included. This makes sense. We need someone showing us the way and how to engage in a space.

And we love to see that the artist does not hold themselves apart in a holier-than-thou way. 

I have seen our community stagnate here because I am unwilling to offer myself in this way. 

But I actually believe the artist has a responsibility to hold themselves apart to some degree. Not because they are holier-than-thou, but because they aren't. They are human. They shouldn’t be expected to have full online presence and full artistic presence and full real life presence all at once. 

It's called boundaries, baby. And these are mine. 

HOWEVER.  

Now that I've said them loud and clear, you will likely see me dabble in and out of responses as I can. Because that's the chaos in me. 

AND

I do not want to leave you high and dry. If I wish to exist as the artist first and foremost in this space, then we need a community leader. That’s why I am seeking someone who would like to work VOLUNTARILY as a community leader here. You would respond to everyone because you want to. Because it fills your cup. Because you have enough JAM to spread around. 

This is not a paid position and I would expect you to show up on a consistent, daily basis. Which sounds like a tall order, because it is. I will say that the last person I offered a role like this to, years ago, went on to successfully and enthrallingly monetize her own online cult, oops I mean community, which I encourage you to check out. So it is excellent practice, if you’re looking to go on to do the same.

If you are interested, please email me with the subject heading:

COMMUNITY LEADER.

I’m so excited to see who turns up. I’m so excited to see how it enlivens this space. I’m so grateful for every single one of you who have already brought so much brave participation here, and for those who haven’t but who I know read this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And yes, I feel that vulnerable sense of oh dear, I hope they still like me after this. Because knowing your own limits is hard. But pretending to not have them in order to get love or money does more harm than good. Trust me, I’ve tried both ways.

xx,

Yan