Points of Light, today, I drove myself a couple of miles through the cornfields of Evansville so that I could arrive at Planet Fitness and complete “day two” of a thirty-day gym challenge. Did I want to go to this gym? No, not really. Oh, it’s not why you might think nor what could have crossed my mind - “This is stupid, who am I to think I can do a thirty-day challenge? I give up, I may as well go home.” That thought can cross one’s mind at the beginning of his thirty-day gym challenge, but this thought never even approached the threshold of my consciousness. That said, As I drove and as my car pushed me through these cornfields we call Evansville, bringing me closer and closer to Planet Fitness, I seriously thought about not making day two’s challenge happen. No, I’m not being coy, I just think words need to be said, and a story most definitely needs building.
For me, there’s nothing more important in life than finding beauty. So where does one find beauty? More important, when beauty has spent so many years eluding someone - take me for example - especially when beauty is so important to me, how do I find this elusive beauty? The answer is, sometimes I have to create my own beauty. To create beauty, like say, in a beautiful painting. So, I need a pallet of colors from which I can choose what my painting called "beautiful" looks like. In this pallet of colors, will I find beauty dipping my brush in mostly red, cayenne, or crimson? Will beauty be found mostly in a light shade of green? Will yellow please my eye or do I need strokes of arctic blue hidden within a light shade of blue nebula?
Colors are wonderful and pleasing - both in living and loving. No different than living and loving, with colors, I get to experience beauty. This is my truth and it says beauty brings me happiness. And yet, even colors are elusive without light. You see - no light means no colors. No colors mean no beauty. Light is the key, and life without light is hard to live because it becomes hard to breathe, and hard to push one foot and then the next through time and space. This is because without light, colors must and absolutely do play hooky. Without light, we have to deal with this truth, without wonderful, awesome, and radiant colors, beauty is, well, forever elusive.
So today as my car pushed me through the cornfields of the city of Evansville, the sun hid behind a cloud. Everywhere I looked, everything I beheld looked dark and dreary, and within this dark dreariness, colors disappeared. In other words, beauty eluded me. Finding no beauty, life became hard and almost senseless. Yet, aren’t yet’s cool? Yet I continued to keep my foot pressed on the acceleration peddle of my faithful car and in turn, my car kept pushing me forward through the cornfields and toward Planet Fitness where I did finish day two of my thirty-day gym challenge.
But there’s more - the gym was over, finished, done. Once more a dark and dreary day surrounded me and beauty again decided to elude me. Soon I decided work needed me to play hooky and I obliged this need. But then I remembered a painting needed to be painted.
What can someone, anyone, me; What can I find in a photograph? Well, if in this photograph is someone I know, maybe I can spy a familiar smile, a knowing wink, or a hair color I know so well. Maybe I get to study her face, look into her eyes, and in this photograph, I realize all the intelligence this person has always shared with me. But what if in a different photograph, I get to see the person I know and standing behind her, is someone I know nothing about. To me, this other person is a riddle, a mystery, or even an enigma. What can I find out about this other person just by looking at her? Is she intelligent? Your friend definitely is, but the new person? Looking at this person, you study her face and try to imagine what she might say or want to talk about. You study her more intently as you desire to intuit the answer you seek. As you look at her, you imagine she says a word, then two, until she’s said part of a sentence that’s only interrupted because the friend you know laughs. So you intuit she’s intelligent enough and intelligent enough seems like it’s the right amount of intelligence good people ought to have. Then you begin to wonder of this new person, is she kind? Your friend in the picture, you know a lot about her kindness. Hmm, you look closer at this photograph as you realize you only have an image of her, you have no prior knowledge of her, so beyond this image in a photograph, you have nothing to hint at either her kindness or lack thereof. What can you intuit about her kindness? As you study her image, you notice you see two smiles, ones on your friend that you know and another's on the face of the person you know nothing about. “Smiles can be faked”, you think to yourself. But then you notice, this person you don’t know, her smile is goofy and one of her eyes is open, but her other eye is closed. You look closer, “Is this a lie?” You deduce that while a smile can be faked, a goofy grin that’s accompanied by facial expressions (one eye open - one eye closed) is a personality quark. Is she kind? You certainly can’t know the answer to this question based on a very tiny and small moment of time captured in a simple photograph, but you want to believe she’s kind. If not, why would your friend want to take a photograph and have this new person you know nothing about, share the full space found in the picture.
In this photograph, you rediscover a truth, beauty is only skin deep. Our skin is only the clothes we wear, and while our clothes may look beautiful and make us look beautiful wearing them, we know very well some people who wear beautiful clothes are very ugly people. Still, if we look deep within ourselves, that is, if I look deep inside myself, will I find perfection? Just in the mere act of asking that question, I find the question that was said didn’t exist, that is, “there are no stupid questions.” Yeah, it needs to be admitted, even though it goes without saying - I’m not perfect!
Are both people in this photograph beautiful? Their skin says yes, and to the eyes, they are both very easy to look at. I know only one person in this photograph, is the person I know in this photograph intelligent? Is the person I know in this photograph kind? The answer to both these questions is yes. Is the person I know nothing about in the photograph both intelligent and kind? I choose to believe the answer is yes, but if the answer is no, well, who the hell am I anyway?
Love and Peace,
Tod w/ only one d
Comentários