We’re on the edge, as always. There is always a move toward something, even if it’s inertia. More or less. There’s really no way to be perfectly still (without an iota of change), though some mystics might argue that point. They might argue (ecstatically) and their argument would cause changes of some kind — inner, outer, future.
It’s very simple, really. We can’t fight transformation into another state. We can’t fight becoming, though many of us work hard at being. Just being.
Of course, there’s a world of difference between seeking motion for motion’s sake, and seeking quietude for the sake of . . . well, sanity. The space between. Before every sequence, and after every ending.
Perhaps it really boils down to our feelings of control over our environment, an environment crafted primarily for the tiny few, though we mostly don’t think in those terms. On behalf of and for the few, instead of by and for the Many. If it were the latter, if that were the foundation, things really would be far simpler. They’d be far simpler because our needs and wants would arise organically to the degree possible. They wouldn’t be pushed on us from above, from the top of the pyramid, or from the future, or from a rewritten story of the past. We’d decide for ourselves. Not for money. Not because we had to in order to get paid. Our decision would flow up from the earth and walk with us, slowly, and surround us like a soft, breezy blanket we make together with our peers.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of “nice things,” and how that’s evolved beyond all original intentions, and how it’s no longer grounded, as it should be, in what we need. I’ve also been thinking that access to “nice things” shouldn’t have anything to do with tiers, levels, stratospheres of what we can and can’t afford. That it’s absolutely crazy that we have to pay more for “nice things” because if we don’t, we get “cheap things” (that fall apart) instead. But what if we made nothing but “nice things,” and that was the norm, the floor, the baseline? What if everything we humans took the time to create was already useful, effective, of the highest quality, safe, and that we didn’t waste our time making crap? Top notch or bust. Top flight or fuhgeddaboudit!
Of course, some of that would fall into the camp of Subjectivity, and we’d have to leave room for that. Lots of room. What one person sees as beautiful, wondrous, the finest the world has ever seen, another might see as an abomination. But we can build a world for both/and. We don’t have to choose one or the other. At the very least, we should be able to agree that “nice things” should last. And last. And last.
The following paintings were made primarily with Krita software:
