and with human beings.
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“Even if you stumble, you’re still moving forward.” Maybe a year from now you’ll be unhappy with the decisions you make today, but maybe you won’t, and chances are you’ll learn from your choices and grow as a person. There’s only one way to guarantee you’ll be unhappy, and that is to do absolutely nothing at all. Every action you take, you’re making a choice and pushing yourself in one direction or another—look in the details and you’ll probably find the truth in where you want to end up and who you want to be…
— A
An incredibly lovely piano piece, “White Ocean”, which was composed by a friend of mine in a day. Her music is absolutely breathtaking and I’m constantly in awe of this girl and her creative expression musically, vocally, artistically, and linguistically.
Wake, wake,
if you are alone,
and breathe, please breathe
until I come home.
Wake, wake,
but please do not cry,
spread your wings but please do not flyaway from me,
away from me.
I heard a beating
and it curled around my mind and
it left me blind
to all but its mesmeric pulse;It’s pounding still
It’s haunting me foreverOr until I understand what anything means
Of that world that was lost
That I watched burn away
Of the earth and her anguish
Of this undead heartbeat inside my brain.
— A
I believe that man will not merely endure. He will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.
William Faulkner
Standing there, cold afield
Your limbs outstretched for the wind
with your birds,
feathered dark,
Memory and Thought.
The black reflection in your eyes
As you were calling for me…
…One of your ravens escaped and fled
and found my spirit in the air.
The bird’s eyes shone,
like a silver looking glass,
and I caught but a glimpse of life again.
Your memories drowned my wanting mind
Of times I can’t remember when.
I couldn’t let go,
I couldn’t bear,
but the bird just drained through my hands—
cold afield, standing there,
and I was dead again.
“I think it’s possible, Kaydra, to be intoxicated by poetry.”
‘Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.’
Franz Kafka
(Source: larmoyante)
To me, I suppose that art is understanding—understanding our surroundings, our human nature, emotion. Why would we feel such a strong need to explore emotion and creativity if there wasn’t that beautiful element of mystery, of discovery? For example, every time I play piano and shape a phrase of sound, the music stirs a latent emotion within me, revealing some particle of my spirit that I forgot existed. Every time I draw a picture or produce an image (I’m sure this is a similar feeling for you), I see a little fraction of myself etched into the artwork; it possesses my feelings and my thoughts. I always wonder what inspirations the artwork will provide for others. Will it help them to see things in a new light? Will it open a new window for creativity? Will it impact their understanding or perceptions of something? I ask myself these questions, hoping that it somehow will bring others happiness, whether it be through beauty, insight, and/or inspiration. I love studying human nature…humans are so complex, yet the subtleties of expression and interaction can often have the most profound impact. I love artwork because it captures these subtleties. The perfect combination of notes, a magically captured photograph, the stringing together of words to produce the closest thing we have to a tangible soul. We humans like things we can feel and see and analyze—music, writing, and art (in all its forms) give us a flawless balance between being able to feel and experience emotion, the human spirit, and simply sensing it. As much as we love science, which is an art in its own right, we also love the unobservable. We love to feel. We love the chills that trickle down our spine; we love the uncanny and the unexplainable. Art helps us understand what we can of ourselves, of our world. It heals us and matures us. Yet it also keeps our faith in the realms of imagination and creativity and life and death that we have never been to, but we have only tasted in a painting or been whispered to through a song. I could continue to rant on forever about how much art inspires me and teaches me more than I could ever have predicted, but I’m sure that similar musings have swept through your mind. I’m just glad that I can share those thoughts and appreciations with others! And you especially, Kaydra, understand the true meaning of art; you foster it so carefully yourself and introduce it so beautifully to others.
Error and imperfection allow for a growth and dimension otherwise unable to develop in any “flawless” structure. As Lucilio Vanini aptly observed, there is an exquisiteness in flaw, a uniqueness in imperfection, a certain quality about the grotesque, the “different”, that makes it so much more inimitable and, consequently, valuable. Would Eden be so wondrous if everyone’s version of Eden looked the same? Would treasure be treasure if everyone possessed it?
