Ace in Hand

From the bare summit of a hill, one can see far and wide. Above the underneaths of land and sea, beneath sky, and surrounded by a universe, one may feel as if all alone and sense such aloneness of being as a vast and poignant quality.

I've named an album I've not produced and released, "Quest". It remains a glimmer in my mind that I return to on occasion. A break of years may sit between returns.

Altogether, it's a widely-rendered concept, its lyrical corners and edges vague, and a musical accompaniment almost wholly unmade, and just about lives through being in my memory if not continually remembered. Firstly, it's made up of a mixture of colours, images, pieces of language, and a story. The images include a variety of people, their outfits, their surroundings, their vehicles, and Space. Secondly, this album concept exists as a somewhat philosophical and moral symbol for me.

Symbolically, it's a quest, hence the album name. And the quest is allegorical, a voyage that represents a search for respect, communion, and peaceful experience.

Having been through my notes on this album, for the first time in a while, I've seen that my memory of its contents differs somewhat from what's there. Although, of course, it's possible to change its composition and order if I wish, at present it's the picture of "Quest" of another me, a person I don't wholly agree with anymore. I want my new version more than the old, so had I issued it in the past, I might not like anymore what I had made. But now, if I want my development of it to continue and even for it be issued, my incomplete project I shall resume afresh and make again.

There are bits of it I love still. The key thing is the parts I don't like I realise I put in to try to finish something, to impress others (even if only an imagined audience) or to realise a stereotype of an artist rather than reveal my own artistry. Fortunately, such awkward parts are not many and most of the text is beautiful in being true to my vision.

Why not try again and renew "Quest" with a revised inspiration?

At the time when I had the first sense of urgency to make Quest, a zeitgeist arose that appeared to reflect in its essence the overarching idea I had felt as so private. It took me by surprise. But I was, perhaps, young enough that previous iterations of these concepts did not make part of my living cultural memory and so had the thinness found in the spirit of the new to the inexperienced.

Looking across the harbour from a window in a solitary mood, I pictured this album. And right across the harbour in the direction I gazed was a filming location for one of these reflections - although I didn't know that for at least another 18 months.

"Avatar" swept a epic entrance into the social mind and I felt a great deal of frustrated confusion, a resentful belief I was all of a sudden excluded from my own fire of inspiration because now I wouldn't be obviously the creator of something solely my own.

Of late, having revisited the storyline of the film (that I never saw due to my antagonism towards its very existence), I realise my understanding of it was incorrect and I've not just limited my belief about the uniqueness of my own vision, but also quite unnecessarily held my own idea at bay in response to a false picture of reality.

The film may have some similarities to my thoughts but had another provenance, many years in its making, the similarities therefore representing a converging of purposes unknown to their makers in the state of conception.

Again, it is now I realise that my false picture was the thing that undermined my motivation to proceed with my idea: I scuppered myself, however unintentionally.

My idea remained at its point of conception but could not arise and bloom in fullness if I were to give no nourishment to it.

Beliefs are a form of investment - a necessary measure of support before any other. Even an abundance of ready money, admittedly also absent at the time of my original idea, doesn't and truly can't overcome any unwillingness to pursue one's own passions.

Like a sonata, I reinvoke my first theme: a recapitulation in abstract terms - a bare edition.

To embrace the shadow of your desire isn't the same thing as loving in fact with conviction a whole individual before you, and it applies as much to the arts as to people.