Science is the defining and explanation of facts.
Art is the playing with and creation of new ones.
[Artwork: ‘Hebomoia’ by Jo Blogg http://www.joblogg.co.nz/]
Observation – Science and Art
Observation – Observing the Observer
She gave me a deep glance. Not a stare. Nor yet was it fleeting. But it was a look wherein even her blinks seemed penetrating as if carefully measured to lure from me the comfort of normalcy. All the while behind those smudged eyelids, the flickering blade-like eyes cut through my flesh and bones, freezing my soul and stealing my thoughts.
Observation – Mortal Illusions
the immediacy of life
is exactly
that reality
that we all obscure
so that we need not face
our own
mortality
Optimism and Positive Thinking
Optimism, that positive poison, is merely self-pity dressed up as Santa Claus.
One day the charade will end and your naivety will be shattered.
Make it today so that you can get real and live life in all its gruelling glory!
Observation – Where Love Begins
Relationships begin most frequently with physical attraction. Yet this physical attraction is held airbrushed in the fantasizing mind; the physical remains an abstraction. It is through time and the experience of learning to ‘be together’ that we begin to truly exist for one another. Not as abstraction, not as fantasy, but as substance. It is only then that love can begin… or end.
View from Leopold’s of London Cafe, Abu Dhabi
The water lay dark and still, a reflection of the night sky. Around its bay-shores sparse and dim lights murmured on its dead surface, blurring like smudges, misshapen and utterly accidental. Above and behind those shores were such arrays and variations of lights fantastic, coloured, bright, dim, electric, fluorescent, neon, kaleidoscopic, piercing, flashing, irritating the eyes and disguising the reality of the buildings and streets which lay immersed beneath them. The scene was like a fairground, a thing shouting so much promise from afar yet a place when finally met yielding only broken machines, maddening cacophony, the stench of sick and burnt popcorn, and the squawking of deluded youth amongst ruined fantasies.
Advice to my Children
Your fears and your failures are just the beginning of getting things right.
Press on!
Observation – Head Noise
The rushing of invisible seas mixes through my ears washing my thoughts with irritation, a questioning tinnitus distracting me from focussing like the incessant ‘why-ing’ of a small child driving for an answer. But the answer is irreducible, insoluble and so damn noisy. This cacophony is delivered with such a vicious clamouring that my own head has become a cruel impossibility.
Observation – Where Faith is Found
Paddling close to the shore is safe, we are in control and enjoy the lapping water and the security of the more solid sands. But what is truly interesting, what is truly exhilarating is being that next step out, just barely out of our depth, on tip toes and on the verge of losing control, risking something precious and irrecoverable. That is where faith is found.
Observation – Blind Proximity
If you stand at the North Pole, at absolute North, you have conquered it, obliterated it. North for you at that time and that place no longer exists. Yet it does exist. It is also very real but you can no longer find it. Like the wood from the trees, proximity blinds you. And so like relationships: sometimes the beauty of them and sometimes the horror of them becomes invisible. It exists. It is very real, but you can no longer find it. You are lost in the North with no North. You are lost in the woods without trees. You are lost in the blind proximity of your love.