Wellsbaum.blog

Writing about life and arts

Poetry

  • To dine alone or bowl alone are events that blend strangeness and familiarity. Yet, they, too, are entirely social. The export of one human mind to another happens in an instant. Apes are always burning toward an ambition of experience. Psychology aside, we can ill afford to do nothing in spite of our paradoxical intention.…

  • The space between our ears, where what we know or think we know, contrasts the reality of what we should see. For some people, mental chatter precedes vision. The ignorant always risk being blindsided. They are the opposite of a child, turning a blind eye to the openness that foments growth. As adults, we stop…

  • At peace with the thinking, not always with the thought. The lizard brain generates emotions that are not immediately subject to reason. Emotion-action often leads to undesirable behavior, independently of our control and without our understanding. Therefore, it’s of the highest importance to recognize the issue at hand. Intelligence restrains the worst of our emotions…

  • We want to reduce the stress in our lives, yet we keep piling on the number of things we need to do. We travel arms wide open into a tidal wave of responsibilities. We want to restrict the data tech companies collect from us, yet we swipe right at consent—all terms, all conditions, in favor…

  • The temptation to linger in maximum comfort — life isn’t a warm shower, you know. One typically extends a staycation at the sight of pleasure or during a pandemic, displeasure. People are adaptable, prepared to extend or narrow their comfort zone in various situations. They’ll even attend to simultaneous entertainments if it means they can…

  • She was out there, in ideas and intentionality. By high school, she had already separated from the herd. She refused to abuse herself into the maw of conformity. College was a continuation of being different. The more she resisted, the more natural it came. Listening to herself ranged beyond self-absorption. But then the internet came…

  • We suffer from a surfeit of choice. An excess of options breeds indecision, the cruelest of frustrations. The result? We end up doing nothing at all. Perhaps inertia is the best solution in these dizzying times. Instead of forcing the issue, we let nature take its course. Yet, life doesn’t move unless we do. It…

  • The choir of one conducts an archaeological dig of the self. What else to expect other than massive truth bombs? The head is the instrument of instruments, yet it can’t outsmart the amygdala. The prehistoric brain fires on all cylinders. The inner-narrative searches beyond the mask anchoring down any Shakespearean stage. The ego has the…

  • Back to black

    The cement of society amounts to a thin place that refuses to be exploited and homogenized. The world is flat once again, as nation-states, cities, and towns have gone back to their most nativistic urges. Globalization was never ruthless enough, spread unevenly amid the digital divide, and invariably vulnerable to the power-hungry few. The market…

  • Abstract thinking strings together collisions of thought, producing ever-more complexity or the deepest simplicity. Tinkering with possibilities makes everything strange, at least at first. But that’s yesterday’s genius. Today and tomorrow, we’ll mill around some more, waiting for the most certain idea. Even the subconscious doesn’t give time off for the brain to relax. Said…

  • The cafe was the original newsfeed, a meeting place to exchange ideas and to find out what the heck was going on in the world. The cafe was a place, other than a detached home, where Arabica beans filled people’s minds with sparks of aliveness.  Exposure to high thought influenced great art.  But then fame…

  • She never imagined what her artwork could do to her. Her output fostered confidence in the images of the psyche. She brushed with aplomb, thinking without thinking — neither about the potential eyeballs nor sales numbers. What artist needs market research? Honest, disciplined, and in good taste. The creator never grew disillusioned when she got…