NATURAL SELECTION

Pain and suffering is universal, but the ways in which human beings recover from hardship and adversity differ signficantly. Nowadays people turn to drugs, alcohol, antidepressants - anything that provides instant gratification - in order to feel release. But these methods are band-aids for deeper emotional sores, for such problems often require greater attention and motivation in order to recover fully. If you have ever studied art history, religion, or medieval literature, you will know that traditional artistic paradigms attributed remedial powers to divinity, the cosmos, or the combined forces of both: that is, humans pled both to Mother Mary and Mother Nature for release from suffering. Of course, Religion and Nature have competed for superior remedial status throughout time, yet both themes have remained in artistic, poetic, and literary depictions to this day.

Now, I'm not much of a believer in things I cannot see. I grew up going to church, was baptized and confirmed an Episcopalian, but never really carved myself a strong foothold in religion. As a sheltered child, I had no idea why most people turned to religion. I simply sang hymns and memorized prayers, with no true understanding of the reasons I was doing either. The arrival of adolescence, however, shook my entire existential foundation. Protected or not as a child, we all inevitably confront our own mortality. This realization of finality can send anyone into the comforting arms of religion, especially with the promise of immortal life after death, and the sparkling image of Heaven to keep all of our fears at bay. I suddenly understood why people flocked to the same austere building every Sunday. Images of God and Heaven helped people through their pain, through their own existential suffering, through their daily hardships. To them, it was okay to hurt now, for they would eventually be released from total suffering and rewarded in the afterlife. Trust me, I felt comforted by this idea of an afterlife for a short time as well, but couldn't fully wrap my mind around the idea of faith. That freedom from death mandated an unwavering belief in something invisible was not a prescription to which I could subscribe.

And so I entered high school and college, open to alternative avenues for tolerating the fear of death and the pain of daily hardship and insecurity. I took a poetry course one summer and found great inspiration in the poetry of William Wordsworth. His words truly opened my eyes to the power of Nature to heal and relieve. I want to share with you one of my favorite poems that he wrote in 1804, "Daffodils":

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I began to believe in the spiritual and regenerative qualities of nature. I realized that simply sitting outside on a beautiful sunny day, walking through a garden, sitting on the beach, hiking up a mountain, or looking up at a night sky full of stars could do wonders for the human body, mind, and spirit. If I were feeling down, worried, anxious, I could retreat to nature physically (or, like Wordsworth, only in my mind) and feel comforted. There seemed to exist such simplicity, beauty, energy, and innocence in the universe. This world order could harness and ground the ugliness, unruliness, and complexity of my thoughts; could deflate my self-importance and make me feel like a humbled creature, born to appreciate life instead of examining and criticizing it so intensely. Seeing, smelling, and hearing the natural world was more comforting to me in my despair than envisioning the Heavenly delights that awaited me after death.

But we all know that nature is not always kind. For every sunny day, clear sky, and cool breeze, there is an equal amount of rain, frost, ice, and snow. Which makes me wonder: do the torrential, unpredictable, and potentially fatal elements of nature impede healing and recovery for human beings? Or can humans reach grander emotional, spiritual, philosophical, or artistic heights after losing their footing over a jagged precipice? Perhaps the allure of nature for the sufferer is not always the protective shade of a large oak tree, but the destructive throes of a storm. Nature's promise of danger or certain death has the ability to thrust an individual not into the arms of religion, but humbly alongside the organisms that depend upon rain in order to grow, evolve, and survive. Sunshine, rain, joy, and pain are the essences of existence and longevity - we must experience, not escape, from both. If we constantly retreat from hardship or stormy weather in our minds, we will never fully grow. Maybe if we turn not to Heaven or Daffodils, but to the Eye of the Storm in our time of need, we will emerge cleansed and with renewed zest for life.

One article that summed this idea up well for me was featured in the September 2008 Smithsonian magazine. In popular conversations about Seattle, most people will tell you that the constant rain brings about bouts of depression and unhappiness. The writer Charles Johnson, on the other hand, believes that the stormy and gray Seattle environment actually fosters creativity, inspiration, and spiritual awakening:

"...Art, philosophy and spiritual contemplation...are enriched by the misty, meditative mood invoked by the Northwest's most talked about feature—rain—and the wet evening air that causes portions of the geography to gleam and hazes other parts, sfumato, from November through February, in an atmosphere that is a perfect externalization of the brooding inner climate of the creative imagination...With weather like this, it's easy to stay inside, reading and writing, until spring."

My question to you all is, what brings you out of yourself? Is it sunshine or rain? Are you healed more by the rays of the sun or the tear-shaped drops of rain? Do you find inspiration looking out your window at a cloudless sky or a foggy mist? Does your state of mind need to be reflected in nature, in order to feel comforted?

Hope your week has been going well :)
Love, AT

TUNNEL VISIONS

Recently, I've been trying to remain conscious, awake, and open to artistic inspiration during my morning commute. This has proven to be very hard for me, considering I dread descending into the City's subway system. The constant crowding in the trains, in particular, derails any effort on my part toward a Carpe Diem optimism. Not surprisingly, the daily rush and congestion incite a fair amount of rider resistance, as each commuter seeks to preserve a modicum of personal space. Usually riders postpone their pent-up frustration until they exit the train, whereupon they push or shove anybody in their path. Outbursts erupt occasionally from inside the train, trapping everyone in the vicinity and putting all hairs on end. Frankly, I had no idea that people could become so aggressive at 8:30am. In the city, however, the dimension of time is amorphous and basically irrelevant. Someone's morning commute could be another's return from an evening out.

In any case, this cycle of congestion and contention occurs every morning. I often wonder: does the frustration I witness point to an evolutionary need for elbowroom? Or is frustration a socially-conditioned effect of forced invisibility and the cancellation of personal identity?

Known as the quintessential "salad bowl," New York City welcomes all variations of race, class, culture, and religion. The city endorses personal expression within all public domains, endowing each individual with visibility and a strong sense of self-importance. The subway system, however, seemingly contradicts city ordinance: this anomalous public domain forces riders to shed individuality and personal space in order to increase transportation efficiency. In essence, riders enter as Capitalists and travel as Socialists. Perhaps the frequent pushing and occasional outbursts reflect riders' efforts to assert themselves before the "system" completely erases them. Or does this phenomena simply point to the general complacency and entitlement of all New Yorkers?

Psychoanalysis aside, the congestion, tension, and aggression in the subway system are staples of everyday life for most people in the city. Ironically, much of this underground activity goes completely unnoticed by artists characterizing the city in film, novels, or television. In my opinion, phenomena not deemed glamorous or sensational by today's standards must still be documented and considered for aesthetic value. The sensory stimuli on the train alone provide incalculable amounts of artistic inspiration.

Consider the dynamic visual dichotomies: people entering or exiting, concentrating or daydreaming, sleeping or resting, begging or donating, standing or sitting, listening to music or reading a book; people that are clean or dirty, rich or poor, black or white, beautiful or ugly, fat or thin, formal or informal, single or married, sane or mentally disturbed; people with children or with pets, with shopping bags or shopping carts, with city maps or city trash. Consider all of the various nuances inbetween. I am constantly surprised by how much beauty exists in a 25-minute commute.

This morning in particular, I noticed that my train was traveling parallel to another moving train. I watched with acute self-awareness: I was not only a passive rider in public space, but also an active voyeur peering through a private window. I could see every passenger in the train across from me, and all of the dynamic stereotypes I described before were at play. I realized that for better or for worse, these people reflected my own hopes and dreams, my own generation, my own existence. They embodied the redundancy of corporate life; the desire for something invariably out of reach; the tendency to follow a routine because it's comfortable; the inexpressible need for fulfillment, love, affirmation, and respect. I realized that we are all connected. Despite our differences, we are very much the same. We are actors of our fates, subjects of larger institutions, and voyeurs into our souls.

DOCUMENTING LIFE

Welcome back! Hope you all had a restful two days off!

This weekend, I thought a lot about the way in which people document their lives. Nowadays, we follow the journeys people take through pictures, videos, blogs, and mass e-mails. Our lives have become contained in devices. We represent a generation that speaks almost entirely in Computerese.

When I think about how technology has evolved into a mass commodity, it makes me nostalgic for the media from my grandparents' generation. I love looking at the silent "home videos" that my grandfather made in the 1940's and 50's, as well as the black-and-white family photographs that fill suitcases in my grandmother's apartment. In essence, each is simply a document of the past. No frills, no special effects, no visual doctoring.

Despite the austere quality of these representations, I feel more transported and emotionally moved by these older art forms than I do while watching contemporary movies or looking at color photos. I find that the presence of beauty in these films and photographs derives from the (ironic) absence of sound and color. Each artistic document, void of visual or verbal flourish, becomes embedded with a sort of mystery, allowing us to romanticize, create, or fill in the emotions that are not fully conveyed to us through words, music, or visual accompaniment. These silent documentaries and static snapshots do not spoon-feed emotions or reactions to the viewers: the ambiguity allows for limitless interpretation. Thus each documentary of human life, no matter how mundane, can evoke a transcendent or extraordinary response from those who experience it.

For me as a painter, my grandmother's old photographs especially inspire me. Not only do they represent my lineage, but the static nature of the prints invites a modern rebirth or reinvigoration of sorts. We know that life and movement exist behind the two-dimensional image, but how can we convey dynamism without bastardizing the sacrosanct image? I am open to any and all suggestions! In my limited experience, I have found that oil paint is extremely malleable and depicts "static motion" particularly well. Any other ideas?

Beyond photographers, videographers, and painters, writers can transform the ordinary world into something out of a dream. John Irving is one writer whose ability to do so resonates in my mind. In his book The World According to Garp, Irving chronicles the life of protagonist Garp and explores Garp's extended relationships with his mother, wife, and children. If you have read the book before, you will remember that there is no oblique or hard-to-follow plotline. The characters he depicts are not other-wordly or superhuman, even though Irving might exaggerate their personalities or experiences at times. Despite Irving's poetic license, the lives of his characters are illustrations (and iterations) of our own.

Call me voyeuristic, nostalgic, or romantic, but I believe that anyone holding a video camera, digital camera, paintbrush, or pen possesses the creative capacity to make an ordinary human life seem extraordinary. Whether or not they know it at the time. Sometimes it takes 60 or 70 years for people to realize.

Happy Monday. Post something if you feel so inclined.