http://gawker.com/man-with-ocd-blows-internet-away-with-hauntingly-stirri-1111560858
It's a powerful poem. And it made me realize several pretty different things.
People of all walks of life, people with all kinds of problems, people with disorders, personal challenges, living in poverty -- whatever, can all feel love. And love can be beautiful no matter where it comes from or how it happens. It changes people. It changes societies. We can understand love because love is a constant in human nature. We need each other, and when we see that another person also needs someone, we can't just ignore that. They are more human to us in that instant than at any other time.
How interesting... As long as we're thinking about how we value other human beings, what value does that bring to us -- to see someone else expressing love for someone? I think it's the reminder of our own love for someone or something. That's something we can relate to, and something which, I think, we all need to be reminded of every once in a while. And we welcome that kind of reminder.
It also made me remember how much I used to love browsing not just the images but also the literature and poetry on DeviantArt. This is a powerful poem. Poems are great when they are delivered live, but there is definitely something to be gained from reading poetry from all sources. Something nice about dA is that you can read poems from amateurs and find meaning in them. But more importantly, there's a community of poets whose work is right at your fingertips, and all you have to do is reach out for them. Click on one, then another. It's uncanny how in one sitting you can see all kinds of different works (even if they're all poetry) from so many different kinds of writers.
I used to write poetry. I use to write literature. I used to do photography. Evidence of all of those are on my dA page.
I also used to do some art. But all of those works (paintings, drawings) are in physical media. A couple of my pieces are displayed in my parents' house. Much of the rest of it has been lost. But I never really committed to doing art. I have just continued to follow interesting topics in art, especially digital artwork on dA.
On the bright side, I turned all my attention toward music for the last 10 years.
This summer I've finally gotten a tablet with a Wacom-powered digitizer: the Surface Pro. I've already started to work on a digital painting which is coming along pretty well considering I've never attempted to create artwork in this medium. I think it will be good for me to work on developing a new hobby. It will be something new to invest my time in, and add some variety to the next few years of my life, since I'll be working on my Master's in CS and it will be a struggle to add classes from different disciplines to that plan.
I'll post soon with the results of my first attempt at digital painting. It will be embarrassing for me to post something so imperfect, but I know that I need to get better at finishing the projects I've started, and it will be a good learning experience to finish it and get it out there, and then know what I need to work on improving.
It's important to accept ourselves and our talents for what they are. Maybe I'm not that good at digital painting right now, but eventually I could become good at it, if I put enough effort into it.
It's also important to realize what skills we have that we are already very good at. We are not imposters in our own lives, even if it sometimes seems that way. For me, self-acceptance and hard work are the keys to assuaging this feeling. I can always work harder to improve at the skills I already have, but something I often forget is that there is such a great reward in working to develop skills I don't have yet. It's good to have a reminder that everyone else feels like they don't know or do enough already, and that I'm not actually at a disadvantage as I start out my journey to become the person I want to be.
You linked the wrong video. Anyways, I watched the video from your FB link and I thought that was an interesting perspective of love but I felt like his OCD may have made his expression of love a tad bit intense. So, I'd like to know what others who have OCD think of this poem.
ReplyDeleteAlso, don't be embarrassed with posting that first attempt. If anything, be proud of yourself because yesterday you didn't do digital painting and today you did and that makes all the difference in the world. Because you did it.
I hope you still don't give up at dance because I think it's a great artform to be fairly decent at. I mean, we have auditory art = music, visual art = photography/digital painting, but kinesthetic art = dance... now that will complete another branch of art that you can master because you can always dance without any instrument to show or play . :-)
Fixed the video; thanks.
Delete