Pain is something I feel. There are certain kinds of physical pain I find difficult to shake. My only defence against sustained pain is through loosing myself: in a place, person, or activity.
When I view a painting of a person in pain, I am invited to feel empathy. The representation is but a weak shadow of the original intense experience. I look on, wince, or look away.
Pain is at its most when personal. Perhaps art, music, and language must also be so to convey it well.
When children find themselves by fine wet sand, one of the first things they do is to press their open hands into it. They pull back and look at something only they can leave. This is their hollow proof to change the world, the affirmation of existence at a time and place. I continue to enjoy walking bare foot on a beech of sand laid silky smooth by the falling sea.
In part, I make in hope the memory of myself is not washed clean by the coming tide.
I am faced with the choice of breaking or building. It is easiest to break. I can break the confidence of a person through criticism, break a friendship by not caring for it, break something I am making by giving up when it fails to work after the fifth draft, or when it seems not to serve me.
Being constructive, despite its challenges, leads me forward. I choose to build.
William Shakespeare
A place where one fresh thought is presented every day.
Think This Today is the creation of Mike de Sousa, an artist, writer, and composer.