Anatomy, the parts that create the whole has been one of the greatest interests developing over time. For when I take apart a structure and look at each piece, my mind becomes able to articulate the kinds of qualities, aspects, sensations that accompany such a formation. The energy of things tends to be difficult to relate directly with, and so I find these kinds of ancillary objects which have tactile qualities to describe and move forward with, from that cerebral space.
Melancholy, does not often seem like a choice...and seeing it as one is something I have always wanted to come to. As a choice, sometimes takes a lot of effort and sometimes next to none. This kind of easiness in choice I find appealing. For there is only but a short time even 90+ years of living could offer.
And if I am going to kinds of thinking, I liken to kinds of thinking that apply not only to what is happening in the world - but towards things I am creating or somehow contributing toward.
Melancholy as a recipe;
melodrama, childhood clinging, fear of death, shame…
Ever sit on the computer too long? Look at a TV or iPad or some kind of screen…
to see liquid crystals so tantalising?
As if looking into a pond to find some kind of feedback, some kind of self, of appreciation, adoration, new idea, all kinds…
the surface as understood as superficial and narcissistic seems misguided
the screen seems as a product of melancholic affinity,
for what easier method to access such ingredients such as melodrama, childhood cloning, death fears and shame than through internalising other people's experience intimately with your body.
The field of vision narrows. the myopia spreads across the population. and here I am making these words on a screen. alright. we are all playing along.
Can someone exist in a life without a screen? do we want to? there are so many privileges that come by association to melancholy. it's a long string of connectivity, sure.
The funny part about the medium of the screen are how often the channels are talking about the here and now. The right here and now, the present, the wonderful unfolding is...the promise of concepts and ideas coming through the easiest mode of distraction known to human kind outside of genitalia. and these kind of critiques are not to prove any kind of wrong in the existence of these things, these objects of speed, of lighting fast interface, of pleasure-no. These kinds of comments and thoughts are funny. And for one simple reason:
Thoughts don't change things. Conversations start to. Actions really do.
Maybe the screen can be seen as a tool. As it surely informs the brain and the body, But I am advocating here a change in value, toward balancing efforts toward creating humanity in a way that has less shiny surfaces, and more soft and warm embraces. That has less ad appeal, less excitement, and more weirdness, and more calm.
But I'm curious also, what kind of nervous systems will humans be handing down when their nervous systems are maxed out?
Photographs from Lofoten Norway, 2018, Rachel Marie Wolfe Ammann
The anatomy of melancholy