Art and life. Being and becoming. Purpose and potential. Love. Love. Oh, and Love. These are things I think about a lot. Nay, agonise over a lot. I have all these thoughts which whirr and reverberate around my brain, keeping me up at night till the wee hours and stopping me from being useful - a paralysis of rumination, immobilized by meditation, a terrified rabbit in the blinding headlights of thought, blah blah blah.... In any case, I thought perhaps they’re best down on paper. Virtual paper maybe, but “out there” nonetheless.
Get the thoughts out, I've been told. Write a letter to yourself or to someone you’re angry or upset with. Tear it up. Burn it. Feed it to the puppy (remarkably satisfying that one, do try...). Orrrrrr, post it on a blog for people to scorn over? OK, so I've never been told me to do that, and indeed whether anyone else wants to read these thoughts is a $64million question. Should I share my lunacy and expect people to delight in and be amused by my self-indulgent ramblings? Will readers (if I have any!) really glean any sense or meaning from a random collection of my thoughts, poems and reflections upon other peoples thoughts, poems and reflections? And will it somehow lead to me making my own $64million? Hmmmm, I not sure I want to know the answers just yet – it’s a very fragile ego I have, and not one that takes too kindly to criticism or rejection.
Then again, plenty of philosophers were a bit loony, and we make whole undergrad and PhD degrees out of their writings – even the nonsensical stuff. Goodness, I wrote about a lot of nonsense for four years at University and I got a 1st Class degree and a Masters with distinction out of it, so who says my moments of insanity can’t make for some good bedtime reading? (Incidentally, my MA dissertation probably would make for extremely effective bedtime reading – fellow insomniacs, do feel free to apply within. I’d be happy to supply a copy if you’re all done with counting sheep, or horses, or anything else which might conceivably jump hedges).
But, there’s a fine line between genius and madness, isn’t that what they say? Maybe. I’ve always wondered where that line is and whether we often mistake “genius” for things which are, in fact, just complete bonkers. (Look at the Turner Prize for example.... but more on that another day). In any case, as long as I stay on the right side of madness and away from genius, I reckon I’ll be okay – and probably you too if you’re reading this.
So, what’s the inspiration for the blog? What was it, so to speak, that gave me that final shove as I stood, tentatively, shivering in my swimming togs, peering down from the great diving board of life (oh lordy lord, scraping the barrel of bad metaphors!) into the cold water below and a potential non-career as a writer of, well, stuff? Well, in this case it was a photographer called Jeremy Lawrence (his website is http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com by the way – go check it out –after you’ve finished reading this of course.....)
Jeremy is an awesome, fantastic and just brilliant photographer I met whilst dancing at the Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden. (And talking of dancing, I’m sure there’s plenty of philosophizing to be done over that in time... for another day perhaps). Jeremy took the photo here of me one year in Herrang in a rather makeshift studio – something you wouldn’t tell from the final shot. And it got me thinking. Surprisingly – for me.
It got me thinking about that whole thing about pictures and words, and whether one has more value than the other. A quick skip, hop and a click of the mouse over to Wikipedia and I located the quote I was after.
Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours.Or, for those of us who aint so fluent in the old parlez francais , comme moi, “A good sketch is better than a long speech”. Napoleon supposedly and often misquoted as “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
Is a picture really worth a thousand words, and if so, what does Jeremy’s photo of me say? What does it say of me, of my life? What does it say, if anything, about anyone’s life? If Jeremy’s photo is a good substitute for my – or anyone else’s - ‘long speech’, what would that speech be about? How does it begin, and will there be a profound or amusing punch line at the end?
Questions, questions, questions. And herein, through the power of “the blog”, starts the process of answering....which if you’re an ex-Philosophy student like me, you’ll know really just means asking more questions and coming up with definitions..... which you then have to define, and interrogate..... until your brain starts frying and there’s no relief other than a short, sharp caffeine hit and two whole packets of chocolate hobnobs.
Hmmmm...
Coffee & biccies anyone?....
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