ImagiNed Blog - just as I imagined it to be!

Back-Blogging - What a concept!

2006-08-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

Most of you know how blogging works: periodic entries of wisdom, cleverness or banality displayed in reverse chronological order. That means the most recent entries are at the top of the page, with older entries pushed down below the newer ones.

Whenever a blogger makes a new entry (these are called "posts") the blogging software notes the date and time. However, it is possible for the writer to set these time-stamps to any value he chooses. That's how I got this post to appear as if it were written on some date in the future, because I want it to come up on top of the page.

With this being the first (top) posting, I can inform you that the posts below this one were not actually written on their post dates. Some of those posts were written years before, and I am using the blog mechanism as a way of getting these gems of writing online quickly and easily.

So I'm bringing the future into the present even as I'm dredging up some really old (but good) stuff from the really-old-past into the recent past. I have so much of this really old (but good) stuff that it may take me a while to post it all online. I have a backlog to back-blog.

Life Imitates Art

2006-02-14T15:30:00.000-08:00

At some point I will probably have a Body Building section on this site. Just because a concept is manifested in the physical domain, doesn't mean it can't be conceptual art.

For instance, I created the cartoon at right with some online software, then sized and oriented my own shirtless photo to match the cartoon, thereby demonstrating how "Life Imitates Art."

Imagine: The Fool, The Priest and The Magician – Ned’s Birthday Fable

2006-01-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

(Originally published: April 1, 1999)

“Imagine living the life you imagined.” The magician posed the question and the fool answered before the priest could speak up. “That would be magic,” remarked the fool, humoring the magician. “That would be godly,” proclaimed the priest a moment later.

“Imagine living the life you imagined.” A most profound sentence. My most profound sentence. For now.

Today is April 1, April Fools Day.

Today is also Holy Thursday in the Roman Catholic Church, a moveable feast. Holy Thursday is the Thursday before Easter Sunday which is the first Sunday after the first full moon (which was last night, March 31) after the Vernal Equinox (which is March 21). Last night’s full moon was a blue moon, meaning it’s the second full moon in a month, an occurrence so rare that it happens only once “in a blue moon.” Rarer still (only a few times a century) is the occasion of two blue moons in one year, but that is the case this year, 1999, the last year before the odometer of human endeavor turns to Y2K. That makes now an extremely auspicious time.

Holy Thursday commemorates the last supper and the origination of the Christian priesthood – “Do this in memory of me” and all that. I was born on Holy Thursday. Being raised Roman Catholic I took that as a sign that I might be a priest. However, two years of study for the priesthood, sequestered in a seminary, cured me of that illusion.

I still celebrate Holy Thursday as an extra birthday though. That it falls on April Fool’s Day this year is fitting. That way I can claim both the priest and the fool as alter (altar?) identities.

“Imagine living the life you imagined.” is the magic of the magician. In the Tarot’s Major Arcana, the magician is card number one, the card of creative power, depicting a robed figure transmuting inspiration from the heavens to manifestation on earth. I identify with the magician, where “the white lilies of pure abstract thought intertwine with the red roses of desire” to direct the generative powers of will.

We are what we will. We posses the magical power of will. We have creative influence in our lives. Since the seventh of April marks my fiftieth birthday I am indulging myself in this exploration of imagination and will. I’m inviting you to accompany me. Humor me, it’s April Fools Day and we have just witnessed the last blue moon of this millennium. Now is an auspicious time. Always.

Ask along with me: Is this the life I imagined? Yes? No? Somewhat?
Ask along with me: Could I imagine it differently, more beautifully?
Ask along with me: Will I believe in my ability to make it so?

Upon the mention of belief, the priest bursts into our inquiry. “Faith,” he intones, “is a gift from God.”

The magician, choosing to believe that belief is a choice, responds, “Faith is the first act of creation. You have faith once you have decided that you are guided.”

The fool, with the mind of a child, blurts out, “It’s simply make believe. Everything is make believe. You make what you believe. You make believe, that’s all.”

Ask along with me: Will I make myself believe? Will I imagine living the life I imagined? Will I conceive it? Will I believe it? Will I achieve it or receive it?

In the Tarot deck, even before the magician, comes the fool - card number zero, with the meaning: A choice is offered.

Imagine living the life you imagined.

© Ned Buratovich April 1, 1999 www.ImagiNed.com

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Back when I wrote this piece, I honestly didn't know that Henry David Thoreau had already coined the phrase, "Live the life you have imagined." I guess I wasn't as literate as I thought, but maybe it's better just to be a creative conduit for universal intelligence, because there's plenty folks with lotsa book-learning who are now making squat as greeters at Wal-Mart. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the life they imagined.

Don't you make the same mistake.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have
imagined." -Henry David Thoreau

Be a Fool and Tell the World

2006-01-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Announcing the creative idea behind becoming a conceptual artist

Everything begins as an idea. The idea may or may not see fruition, but its chances of doing so are vastly improved (some say) by announcing the idea publicly. Wow, I guess some creative concepts take time, because it was almost two years ago that I broadcast the following e-mail to all of my family and friends:

(Originally published: April 1, 2004)

The April of The Fool

Here's a heads up from one whose head has been down.

Welcome to April, the month of springtime, my birthday, rebirth, Easter, and resurrection. After a year of my life being shattered, with the shards mired in crap and watered with salt tears, the broken bits have begun to blossom. So many shoots of creativity are coming through that I could be happily cast as the blooming idiot.

You might recall from my April Fools' Fable of five years ago, the conversation between The Fool, The Priest, and The Magician. (If not, refresh yourself by re-reading it here.) It seems that my imagination has once again been captivated by the insight of The Fool: "Everything is make-believe, we make what we believe."

Expect from me in this month of April that I will create content and characters like crazy. From the imagination of ImagiNed will spring multiple personalities and personas. Yes, there will be a veritable Easter Parade of imaginary characters, my imaginary friends. Let me remind you that it's perfectly OK to have imaginary friends, but having imaginary enemies means you're paranoid.

Leading the parade will be Reverend Ned, and his new religion of Utilitarianism, or whatever works. Don't worry, I haven't become that tiresome friend who found religion, simply a man who founded one. This new religion will be all inclusive and universally uplifting, and, like so much of contemporary Christianity, with an undercurrent of commercialism. I'm almost tempted to bring out a designer collection called "The Fashion of The Christ" with my spring lineup of Flog Togs™.

After hiding out for so long, I am finally returning to public speaking, but as a parody of my former self, in the persona of Ernest Awful, that purveyor of pompous platitudes in presentations peppered with the three "P"s. You know: "Purpose, Passion, People" or "Partnership, Performance and Profit" or "Pride, Patriotism, Peace… or possibly Pre-emptive war." You get the idea, Ernest means well but his shtick is as stale as last month's muffin.

Oh, there's so many characters that I can't keep them from coming out. There's Mediocrities, the Greek philosopher and Greek olive pitter whose life and philosophy are the pits. There's Detox Dopra, the spaced out drug rehab guy that gets all these esoteric insights into life and being. Ah, the April of The Fool, so freeing and so foolish.

Yes, after being down for so long, I have finally decided to stand up and do stand up.

The rumors of my enrollment in Comedy College are just that, rumors. However, they happen to be true. Stay tuned for one of my many incarnations coming to you from a stage, website, CD, radio or TV station soon. It all begins today, the first day of The April of The Fool.

Ah, so good to be real, to tell the absurd truth and have the whole world think you are kidding.

ImagiNed.com totally re-imagined!

2006-01-01T23:30:00.000-08:00

Finally, the long awaited transformation of ImagiNed.com from a typical, stodgy and oh-so-boring motivational speaker web-site into something so much more fun, irreverent and relevant to the message: Use some imagination to re-create yourself and re-invent your life.

I've taken down the 30-something pages of dreck that populated earlier incarnations of this site and am in the process, over the month of January (and probably beyond) of adding lots of cool content, showcasing many conceptual art projects, past, present, future and timeless.