The perspective of a beautiful urban landscape, viewed from an earlier success, can sometimes make one totally mundane.
At times the light follows us, other times we follow and live according to the light. He was one such ephemeral existence.
But, then, he stops suddenly to ask,
‘What light am I following?’
Then, the world changes.
Realization dawns that the world is dominated by darkness and the light before him were neon signs.
Neon sign. Modern. Artificial light. The life we created only to have it bind us.
At his feet lies a poodle of foul water over a carelessly laid cement floor.
Over it, a reflection of himself. Darkness. So dark he became ashamed.
“How can it be so dark while standing in the light?”
So, considering it wasn’t the right way,
he hits the road to rediscover the light of innocence that had once shaped him.
In reality he was an eccentric. Just as he mis-judged the artificial to be natural,
so he failed in his efforts to fully express his thoughts to his heart’s content,
always comforting himself with false thoughts of being different and a shining light to others.
But, now, he comes to a realization that he was merely a worthless poodle, a shadow without color.
The shock makes him stumble a few times.
His face saddens.
Why so sad when one can’t even discover oneself?
The light fades away. The neon signs likewise draws away.
Why am I so cold? It is only the dissipation of light that once bound me.
Have I really be ningless forsaken being to the world or did the world forsake me
because I have discovered the secrets of the world? Too much noise.
The world is a noisy place.
No matter how far he go, the noise follows him. The noise comes from here and there.
And it arises from the nearest of places.
The worldly faults swirling together with the untamed and confused inner self clamors to be heard, to be recognized.
He stops and observes,
scrutiny and ideas,
wounds and perception.
The wind blew.
What is in it?
He projects the world as a wound yet
he doesn’t see the wound as a wound.
He wanted the wound to dissipate as a single sound. He wanted the man-made scar to embrace the sparrows.
And, though it may be mundane, he wished that it be swept away like a river flow.
He wished himself to be swept away.
So he poured his heart into the wound.
A certain pain spoke to him softly. You must be a man who can answer in your own way.
If not, the pieces of painting you have picked up during your walk can’t explain yourself so clearly.
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He now could understand all that he had ignored for such a long time. Wounds, people and things hurt by the light.
A curious resemblance. Did he think that there is a resemblance between the blemishes in the objects and his own life?
This is the extent of my observation.
He has departed on a long journey. He has captured the pain and isolation of the world in his own way.
And he names them vestiges of life.