Art

Art is very hard to define. What may be priceless art to me might be nothing but pure drivel to you. Oftentimes, this is harmless - you and I may perhaps disagree on the work of an up-and-coming artist where one of us likes the work while the other doesn't. Sometimes, this takes on a darker tint like the book-burnings of old, when oppressive governments willfully destroy knowledge to maintain power. Or the destruction of the places of worship when there is a religious regime change, where whole temples with their amazing artwork and sculpture are burnt and torn down, never to be appreciated by later generations.

However you put it, I believe that each and every one of us has a specific artform that speaks most directly to us. In my case, it's music, food and stories. Music has always spoken to me but if and only if there is the human voice at its core. Pure instrumentals do nothing for me. I can't explain why this is any more than I can explain our purpose for existence; it simply is. The right singer with the right song will evoke strong emotions in me every time. This does not mean that everyone who sings has this power over me; there's a lot of drivel out there.

Gods, I miss being able to sing. :(

Paintings, sketches, still drawings of any form evoke zero responses from me. Nothing. I can look and look but I simply can't relate. Believe me, I've tried - I once spent the better part of the afternoon at the Victoria and Albert museum in London and came away completely unmoved. Sculptures twig my interest meter a tiny fractional amount. I've been at the Louvre and British Museum and found them somewhat interesting. Nothing to write home about in my case though.

I dance but for me that is a very personal expression of who I am and how I feel. I don't expect anyone else to understand this nor have I been able to understand it in others. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a good dance performance when I attend on. I just can't emotionally connect to it unless if I'm the one dancing. Odd.

I can relate to food. I can relate to the artistry not just in the food itself but also in the presentation and pairing of the foods to wine, even the order in which the dishes are served. This I can understand and it feeds the soul as well as the body.

Stories are core to me though. Music stirs my emotions but stories pique my imagination. I love curling up with a good book regardless of whether it's fiction or not. Strangely, I can't really connect to movies - I'm part of that dying generation of book readers who prefers the story seen through the age-old lens of imagination than that of a movie camera. In fact, I prefer radio serials to movies. I guess I'm not a visual person in that regard.

What sparked this line of thought? I'm working through Torchlight, a computer game that I picked up very recently. This is the first game I've seriously played in a long time, as in years. It's not a memorable game although it's quite fun. While I was playing it this morning, I realized that I was playing on the easiest setting unlike most of my other friends, who crank up the difficulty to maximum every time. I guess I'm more interested in getting to the end of the game and finishing the storyline than the game itself. My sis has a similar outlook even though she doesn't play computer games herself. We used to follow Valkyrie Profile together, where I'd be playing and she'd be watching with one eye while she did her art. The thing that bound us both together was the storyline behind the characters.

In the end, I think we'll find that art, amusements, stories, song, dance and all the millions of expressions lead ultimately to one thing: communication. I think we reach out and want be reached out to. All this allows us to try to understand something that someone else has done, so that we can forget that we are all in the end very much alone in our heads.

Value

I love my Kindle. I've read quite a bit lately and that has lowered my stress levels overall. However, I started thinking about why we have such an interest in fiction and why the real world seems quite bland overall.

If you think about it, our current existence is quite marvelous. We can communicate with each other across great instances. We can get food without having to go out there and kill it ourselves. We can pop food into the microwave and get it cooked within minutes. The level of literacy in developed nations is astoundingly high. We can travel from one side of the world to the other in a little over a day. We know more about the universe than ever before, including what shape it is (toroidal), how old it is (13.7 billion years old) and how will it end (in darkness). Consider then, what our world would look like to someone from, say, the Victorian era. This would be a magical world! So why do we need fiction? Why do we escape from this reality by reading about things that don't exist?

I've pondered this for most of today and it's giving me a headache, so I'm calling it quits with this shallow (less than 72 hours processing time) solution: we need fiction because we crave excitement.

You see, it's not the fact that things are wonderful or magical in the stories we read. It's the fact that things happen that draw us in. It's not limited to just the medium of the printed word either - movies and radio serials have the same effect too. Case in point, my current fascination with the British scifi TV series, Doctor Who - every week, the Doctor and his Companions jump from one dire situation to the next of which the price of failure can range from a bunch of people dying to the entire universe collapsing. I mean, imagine the stress the poor Doctor must be under. He screws up, people die. Lots of people. And I want to escape into that world? What manner of insanity is this? Don't I have enough stress as-is in my current job without seeking more stress in a different universe-depends-on-you position?

Here's the funny part: I do. I do want to escape into these dire situations. If not the Doctor Who universe then some other one. Anything but here. Why? Simple - the stress level is stupidly high but if you do your job correctly, the payoffs are magnificent. Let's face it, if I do my best at my job, I'll get promoted into more of the same. I'm trying to do so, actually. However, if a TARDIS materialized in my room and I get whisked away as a Companion, I'd do it in a heartbeat? Why? Even though it's always a matter of life-and-death, there's excitement and value in doing those heroic things. Here we come to the heart of the matter: it's not the adrenaline rush that we look for, it's the fact that our lives would have meaning.

That's the crux of it: all these stories, the protagonists all live meaningful lives. Most of us don't. We go to our jobs and for most of us, we do it well. But at the end of the day, we go home, most of us to an empty apartment. How does that convey any value in one's existence.

My life has value. I know that. I just need to feel the love from my family to believe that. Is it enough? Well, I'm still reading on my Kindle...

Identity Anchors

*** WARNING: Moody self-discovery entry follows. Liberal use of coffee to fend boredom may be needed. You have been duly warned. ***

I've been feeling adrift in life lately. I've tried to pull out of it by reasserting previous career goals but the world is still bland and gray. However, while driving home on Friday, I realized that this depressive mood has been around for some time now, months and possibly a year or so.

When I got my second chance at life, I made a decision to change a few things about me that I really didn't like, calling my harder edges if you like. In the intervening year and a bit, I've realized that there are some things about me that are core attributes, traits I simply can't eliminate no matter how hard I tried. Having a love for solving tactical and strategic puzzles is an example of something I shall never lose, despite the fact that it's less conformist given my current role. So is my love of science. You would not believe how many requests I get to go speak to various youth organizations about inspiring the young ones with my story of growing up with a focus on science. As some of you know, I didn't grow up that way and requests like that make me very uncomfortable. So, I've declined all these requests, feeling very badly for doing so.

I'm still trying to find my place in the universe. Sometimes, things fit. Most of the time, I'm still a square peg in a round hole.

Knowing one's core attributes isn't quite enough. Attributes don't translate into action, merely the potential for action. Action is needed for Moments to happen. Moments of joy. Moments of sadness. Moments of delight. Little markers of both good and bad we carry with us that mark our life's path through the landscape of this reality and ultimately defines us for who we are through those experiences. No, attributes aren't enough. One also needs identity anchors to direct those attributes.

I've lost the majority of my identity anchors over the past year and half. Some by design and others by circumstance. I'm still an aunt, a parent, a sister, a daughter, a worker, a volunteer teacher and a friend. I've lost my identity as a gamer (stopped playing D&D half a year ago), a dancer (stopped going to ballet class 4 months ago due to health issues), a stargazer (stopped doing amateur astronomy 3 years ago due to sight issues) and a foodie (stopped making dishes after my main surgery almost 2 years ago). In short, I can define my identity by what I do and how I relate to others but I have lost practically all my anchors that define my own identity that reflects joy unto myself. The only thing I haven't really lost is my identity as an avid reader, a joy I have rediscovered with my trusty Kindle.

So, I'm going to kickstart two identity anchors: dancer (resuming my ballet classes immediately) and foodie (going to start making good food again for my family). I'll be resuming these today, beginning with making a hopefully-delicious Bourbon Pecan Baked Brie for my family for breakfast. I'm also going to clear out my room so I can dance at home again. Identity anchors translate Attributes into Action, which results in the creation of Moments. Why do I wish to create Moments?

Moments are always associated with a feeling. Joy. Hope. Inspiration. I do not wish to go into the long night with regrets that I have not experienced life in all its awesome, terrible majesty. I was tightly closed when it came to emotions once. I do not wish to again. Why? I'll put explain it this way: scarcely two years ago, my nephews would have never, ever come by, ka-plonked themselves onto my lap without so much as a by-your-leave and started nattering on about an imaginary creature I've never heard of. Little moments of love and security - these were the fruits I have hoping to taste when I started on that long, dark road to being Cured all those years ago. I have those now, from my family. All I have to do is not lose myself now.