But, as always, my art is always a reflection of the life stage I'm at when I create it. We started watching a show called "V," in which aliens visit earth and start this peaceful campaign to merge both species and culture for the betterment of both. But actually they're here to destroy us, as they always are. It's well written, because within the first two episodes, you've got an array of characters, each with their own mini-stories and their own generic conflicts:
- The FBI agent who learns the truth about the aliens' diabolical plot while her son decides to join ranks with them.
- The priest who struggles to help his congregation keep the faith while he inwardly questions the existence of God.
- The alien rebel who sets out to fight the aliens off, while keeping it from his human fiancée and putting her in danger.
- The journalist, whom the aliens put in the sticky situation of deciding whether to do his job or elevate his career.
The list goes on. The reason this is good writing is because they have made an earnest (and pretty successful) effort to ensure that every audience member will be able to relate to at least one of their characters. Parents who want to protect their children, career-driven professionals, religious practitioners, renegade underdogs, earth-hating reptiles, etc.
The reason we are captivated by this kind of storytelling is because each of us carries within us our own collection of characters. People call them masks, hats, alter egos...I call them reflections. My artist friends see my creative self, my intellectual friends see my brainy self, and my co-workers see my lazy self. I mean, my awesome driven efficient go-getter self.
I've been learning some simple yet profound tidbits of wisdom from the oddest places lately. My most recent life lesson has been that every new thing learned is an old excuse lost. But that will probably become it's own article. The other thing I'm learning is to live a life where nothing is left unsaid. It is instinctive to show different faces to different people, depending on the nature of your relationship to them.
One of my closest intellectual friends said to me this weekend, "I wish I had a better eye for the artistic beauty of things." The thought occurred to me right then and there that in the past 25 years, I can't remember the last time I had spoken to him about the beauty I see in the world - about the small aesthetic experiences that make life beautiful. Maybe if I had switched gears and shown him that side of me, he would be more in tune with the aesthetic beauty of every day life.
What I'm getting at is that if you only ever talk cars with your car friends and music with your music friends and movies with your movie friends, you are choosing to pass up an incredible opportunity to see people grow in new directions because of you. Few things are more sobering than the stark realization that most of your relationships are one-dimensional.
Say things you wouldn't normally say to people you wouldn't normally say them to. Show all of you to all of them. Let nothing go unsaid, and see what happens to the way you interface with the world. Take this as an invitation, a challenge, an answer, or a tiny quote printed on the bottom half of today's page in that desk calendar that's only really good for tearing out the pages and folding them into paper airplanes. However you take this, expect me to start living like this. Check back to see how it goes, because I really have no idea what to expect.
This is all for now,
-R.
This is all for now,
-R.
