Friday, March 5, 2010

Alone Pt. 3


She looks lost and innocent enough to believe whoever takes her hand to lead her to her family. She has an old soul. Every time I look at her, I feel helpless. Let me project some more of my own personal baggage. It seems as though she is looking for her mom at some event. And when I look at her eyes, I feel like Cameron Frye when he looked at that painting and gets drawn in by the little girls face. Not that I am comparing my work to a master and leading pioneer of impressionism like Seurat. But the part of this series that is such a great exercise for me is that it teaches me to see further than taking pictures has already done.

But again I return to the infinite aloneness we are all in the midst of. Right now, we are on a planet that is in a constant state of evolution. And a lot of people are not aware of the fact that we are still coming out of an ice age. It's that. That aloneness. In some ways, we are totally insignificant in our existence. Regardless or your religious or personal beliefs, what could we possibly matter in the grand scheme of things? To think otherwise is, to me, so sickeningly pompous. But here we are together.

I believe we all have three parts to us. The flesh...the anatomy of the animals that we are. Then we are also comprised of the mind. But the two are also, more often than not, inextricable. The third is that part of us that we are able to separate entirely. To observe ourselves. And that is where this whole thing rests. In that part of "us" that stands there and realizes that what we just said or did, for instance, is utterly ridiculous. We do it all the time. We talk to others close to us and therapists about it in hopes that we are not as ostensibly insane as we think we are. Or, more frighteningly, how insane we know ourselves to be. We are. We are all insane. And the sooner we all admit it, the better off we will be.

If we were able to share with someone our experiences...the way we experience life, we wouldn't need all these self help books (And in the interest of candor, I am writing one myself). It would be like "The Green Mile" where Paul Edgecomb takes John Coffey's hand. John says "...I got's to show you a little bit of what it's like for me each day..." If we could simply take one another's hand and just send it along through that channel so that someone else can actually "Walk a Mile" in your shoes we would stop judging others almost entirely. We would be better people. But we can't. So we write songs, paint or create in some way an expression of ourselves. To show the insides of you to another. And when we get close to conveying that to another person and that is reciprocated we call it love.

3 comments:

Michelle said...

Zen Koan: "If you can see yourself, who is watching?"
-Hogle

fairelaine said...

Walking a mile in someone's shoes reminds me of a quote...
"The amount of pain we inflict upon others is equally proportioned to the amount we feel within."
I read that about thirty years ago and never forgot it, I think the author had the last name Phelps.
So,instead or reacting negatively, we have to either show love, which I try to do (usually too shy to), or if that doesn't work, try to ignore. The ignoring is a tough one.

Anonymous said...

Nice FBDO reference.