Seeing Human – Art In Perspective

 

 

I have come to realise why we need art so badly. Why our writing and photos and thoughts are so important.

Because art, be it painting with words or brushstokers or using a camera lense as your guiding eye, is essentially a rebirth.

In art, you can lose yourself and find yourself again. It is about losing your perspective, stepping into new stories, meeting the stranger inside you. But miraculously, it is also about gaining perspective. How many times, after a good art-bath, have you emerged with clearer sight or a fresh angle?

That is the magic of art, writing, photography. You are free, yet grounded at the same time.

Your pen, your camera or paint tube is a solid compass in your hand. But for once, you can let yourself go. You can build storms and tsunamis in your mind, kiss a stranger passionately, live in a French film and smoke too much, you can make big look small and small look big. You can make anything. You can change your skin. And when you return to yourself, quite often you find that art has taken you somewhere different.

Art is seeing human. It is peeking inside yourself and reaching outside yourself, at the same time. It makes you want to keep your eyes open. Makes you want to wonder and understand.

Holding art in your mind is like having lemon juice on your tongue. It prickles. And when you feel that prickle, it’s impossible to forget that you’re alive. That’s why I love art so much, in all its forms.

But what is art to you?

 

Seeing human

 

Wisdom

Is looking out for the small

The baby hairs covering sore temples

The caged pulse and bloody cuticles

Looking through anger

And seeing human, remembering

Even iron has its melting point

 

See life today! Peace and love.

When life gives you lemons, make lemon-meringue

I have learnt an important lesson this weekend. And a tasty one too. Here it is, take a look:

Lemon-meringue pie, also called YAMMY!

Macarons with lemon marmalade filling

After my latest kitchen catastrophe, which involved a baking tray set in fire, and all the times I have called myself “the girl who even failed at making Rice Krispie cakes”, I decided to do something different.
So I whipped up a lemon-meringue pie and even braved myself to make macarons, those little cakes that can apparently go wrong in million different ways and make baking art. When I told my sister about my intention to battle these cutely coloured but bad-tempered sweets, she actually gasped a little bit. She probably started designing an emergency escape plan righ there and then, with an appropriate bomb shelter mapped on it just in case I blew up the kitchen.

But guess what?

I managed to make them, and they were delicious! And *drum rolls please* …so was the cake! And out of everyone who ate them, I think I was the most surprised by this. Because I had held this view about myself for so long, this thought that I’m not precise enough person to cook or bake. Yes, I admit, I am still clumsy and there was flour all over the walls. But they were the flag of victory I threw in the air! Because I realised, I had been wrong about myself.

So, when life gives you lemons, make some lemon-meringue.

Firstly, because it’s delicious! And secondly, because I guess it is how they say: You never know just how strong and brave you are before you find yourself pushed out of your comfort zone.
So, when life sets you challenges, don’t be afraid to rise up to them! Remember to dust your beliefs about yourself every once in a while. Otherwise you might miss the little things, like my new tiny best friend le macaron, that give you the opportunity to see the world in a different light!
So be pleased to meet yourself, every day, with a smile and fresh eyes. You might just find you’re stronger, more creative, more surprising than you ever imagined.

And if sometimes you try and try and things still go wrong, don’t feel bad. Just make some more meringue. Then at least you have a cake to eat. This is a win-win plan right here.

Kafka and observations on observation

What is the last time you observed yourself as passionately and sharply as the narrator observes the girl in the above piece? What is the last time you focused on yourself with the same vigour that we often focus on others, comparing ourselves to people around us, pondering over someone’s thoughts or appearance.

Why does the narrator above become so transfixed upon this girl, this fellow passenger?

Is it because she simply is so mesmerising, in which case, the moment should be cherished. To fall in love fast and several times a day is not a weakness but a sign that you are alive and feeling.

Or is it because, by focusing on someone else, it becomes easier to push aside the confusion the narrator feels in himself? Is it escapism? Does the narrator forget for one blissful moment the feeling of being lost in life by getting lost in this girl’s chestnut hair and dark complexion?

I believe that looking at someone, observing someone, is a bit like checking our appearance in the mirror. Often we praise in others qualities we would long to have ouselves, or we walk around disliking someone and picking on their shabby clothes and funny intonation because we are, ourselves, scared to open our mouth or put on our itchy, old jumpers.

We can find in others the traits we value in ourselves or the dark pits of our mind that we run from.

And it is easy to construct grand lists of various reasons in our heads, contemplating why someone is worse or better off than we are. But the question we need to ask ourselves is this: Are those lists actually productive? Do they help us to make a change or should we seek this change by turning our focus to ourselves?

I dare you to do it, right now, to sacrifice a moment just for yourself, no matter how busy you are. To observe the little hills of muscles on your skin and your beautiful, powdery blue blood vessels shining under your skin, your feet and twitching toes carrying you through the day. The shades of light hitting your hair and bouncing off, the changing expressions on your face, the smoothness or raspiness of your skin, the curve of your lip.

Observe yourself with the same wonderment present in The Passenger, look at yourself and say:

I am an amazing living thing.

Give yourself as much praise as you give others, and as much honesty. Hand out smiles to your mirror image as generously as you do to your best friends upon long-waited reunion.  Look at yourself and say:

Thanks for being there every night I go to bed. You’re the one who I always come back to.

Because you might feel envious or in awe when you look at others. You might beat yourself down with your comparisons.  But is your dwelling on them going to change things for you?

Focus on yourself. Work on happiness from inwards. Because at the end of the day, you are the only person you have to have a relationship with for the rest of your life. So make it a good one.

You can spend all your time analysing a dance. Or you can dance.

Diagnosis of a rainy day: I have a love-hate relationship with my brain.

I was reading We Need To Talk About Kevin and started thinking about appearences.

Why is it that I sometimes wish so hard that people would like me and then, when it seems that someone who has been nasty to me might actually like me, I spend time worrying whether it’s all pretence. Instead I should focus on whether it’s not. Or better, focus on the fact that there is people in my life I know are true and genuine and special.

Maybe the problem is that I want to like everyone. I’m a believer in good and in altruism, and it is scary to think that somebody’s opinion didn’t matter in the end. That I’ve wasted time worrying about a thing that didn’t matter anyway. Or that, indeed, something didn’t matter, wouldn’t that mean that I don’t like everyone after all? But I don’t want to be hypocritical. I do genuinely believe that everyone is equally important in this world, people just don’t have the capacity to find everyone important at the same time, which is sad.

Now I’m worrying about worrying, how paradoxal. Isn’t that the ultimate zeitgeist of a waste of time? Or does it make me wiser? Does it have to have a function and purpose anyway to make it worthy; can’t an emotion be worthy in itself, because it exists? I love to think everything happens for a reason, but maybe I should realise that even if something is coincidence, it doesn’t make everything a coincidence. It doesn’t make life a coincidence. Even if everything doesn’t have a purpose, it doesn’t make your life purposeless .

I’ve often been told that I think too much. But if I didn’t think and analyse, this blog probably wouldn’t exist. I might not love writing and other things I love dearly, and then that would make my life much gloomier than worrying does. Then again, worrying does complicate things in vain sometimes and I know over-analysing can also be my flaw. But I also know it’s not a one of Shakespearean proportion. I don’t let it stop me from doing things.

Because you can spend all your time analysing a dance. Or you can dance.