Little office work to do between now and the next trip out. I was listening to Milo today. He introduces his newest album with some clips by James Baldwin.

Here's my favorite track by Milo:

In the first track on the 2017 album, Baldwin comments (self-gratifyingly?) that poets are "the only people who know the truth about us.", commenting that, among others, priests don't know the truth about us. I can only imagine that he's being intentionally vague about what the truth is, perhaps supposing that the "truth" is incommunicable by any normal (nonpoetic) use of language. In any case, I pointedly disagree with a face-value interpretation of his statement.

However, he elsewhere says, "the artist's struggle for his integrity is a kind of metaphor -- must be considered as a metaphor -- for the struggle which is universal and daily of all human beings...to get to become human beings.". I interpret the clause, "to get to become human beings", as meaning, "to identify a set of achievable criteria for self-actualization as humans and then to achieve that criteria", such that, in this context, a human can only exist as an actualized human, because actualization is a part of the human identity. That said, the idea that an artists struggle for his integrity "must be considered as a metaphor" for anything, seems to put artists in a place where even the things which they do without intending for those actions themselves to be art, are by necessity art because of the fact that they relate to the artists production of his art. So then the artists background, which undeniably contributes to every aspect of his art, must also be art. So every part of the artists life is art.

Since Baldwin has also made a distinction between poets and nonpoets (and here is where I don't know if both statements were in the same context, or if Milo was placing them together, so from this point on I am critiquing Milo's ideas inasmuch as he arranged Baldwin's comments in a way that seems to communicate this.) in this same context, it seems that the "artists" are also the "poets", and so I hope that I don't stretch too far when I say that he must think that there are nonartists in existence, for which the statements about metaphorical struggles for integrity do not apply. If that is the case, that abstractions must be made in this way, and that every part of an artists life is art, then I think he's saying that "artist" is an identity which some people do not have.

These days I try to be strict about what things I incorporate into my identity. People can call me whatever they want, and they may accurately classify me according to my temporal qualities, but my identity is a slave of God and none else. So, by Milo's use of Baldwin's ideas, it would seem that I am not an artist unless being an artist is a part of being a slave of God, and so all slaves of God are also artists. This isn't too far fetched, because as far as I'm aware, slaves of God all participate in some form or another in the worship of God by means of art, such as song at church. ... or else I am wrong about the nature of identities and I am wrong about my own identity. Is it possible for a person to be wrong about his own identity? Milo seems to be saying so in his song "IDK".

If an artist is someone who regularly produces art, and if poetry is art, and if a poet is an artist who produces poetry, then I am a poet. If poets are the only people who know the truth about us, and if I am a poet, then I know the truth about us. If I know the truth about us, then I know that the truth pertains to our identities as humans, and I suspect that I know my own identity. This makes sense, because all slaves of God are aware of the truth about the human identity. Now, with this in mind, I might find myself able to agree with Baldwin's first comments about how only poets know the truth about us, because all slaves of God are poets. All that said, since Baldwin says that priests don't know the truth about us (and I assume he's not just referring to catholic priests, but also protestant preachers), and since all real priests are slaves of God, we can't both be right about our identities, and so we can't both be poets.

So, in summary, identity politics are stupid.

"I met an Aristotelian and got depressed about his awkward views."