I was never in it for the money

The art behind art, I think, is seeing the extraordinary in the mundane, making mundane things extraordinary, and while you're at it, realizing that in fact there is no such thing as the mundane. Everything is extraordinary, without losing its peculiarity. And then the artist is teaching everyone else to see it too.

Home, they say

I'll be a little surprised if anyone still reads this, considering everything is over and everything else is just beginning. It's weird being back in the place you grew up after being gone a long time, because everything has changed, and yet nothing has. People ask me how it feels to be home, and I never know how to answer. I can't say I'm not home, because I am. But Mexico felt like home too, for a while, and I haven't lived here in so long anyway that I have to find where I fit here again too. And so I smile and say, "OK I guess", not really answering the question they are not really asking, and we go on with whatever we were doing. But it's alright because I'm busy and so I can forget this in-between feeling.
There is a refugee camp in Kenya with over 10 million people in it. This is a problem. More are arriving every day. This is happening. Now. But what can I do? I hear this and I can't anymore justify eating three meals a day. How do I justify having so many clothes when there are people, when I have met people, who have one set? You could say it's cultural. But I have a terrible feeling that we are doing something terribly wrong. To know what you ought to do and not do it is also a sin. I'm wondering how long I can keep shutting out this cry for justice that I am hearing. This knowledge that something in me has to change. This idea that I have to do something. But what? They say ignorance is bliss. But I am no longer entirely ignorant, and therefore I cannot blissfully ignore the cries of the people who no longer talk.