Oh The Complications Of The Heart...

"Your stuff is good."

"Not good enough."

"Look, why not?"

"I want to draw something that means something to somebody you know. I want to draw blind faith, or a fading summer, or just a moment of clarity. Like when you go and see a really great band live for the first time you know. Nobody is saying it, but you're all thinking it. You have something to believe in again. I want to draw that feeling. But, I can't. And if I can't be great at it, then I don't want to ruin it. It's too important to me."

E. E. Cummings wrote: To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Can a person ever truly understand a piece of art. Is there even a way to fully comprehend all that is said in a simple poem.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

A Glance is never enough to capture all that is surrounding you. A song won't encompass every detail of an emotion. A Picture only speaks a thousand words, and our line of sight only goes so far... but possibilities don't. A work of Art is the heart of an artist. It is a piece of who they are, and all we find is a meaning for us. We are a selfish people, in a selfish world. We struggle to understand another persons reasoning, or their pain. We try, but we can't because it isn't our own. We can only sympathize, empathize to our own level of experience, and even then if you were to write a song, create a sculpture, or paint a picture... you are limited to a thousand words, 3 stanzas, a bridge, and a chorus to depict an emotion not even you fully understand. Every time your song was sung by someone new, each person that runs their fingers along the lines of your sculpture, loses themselves in your painting... you find an aspect you didn't realize you had placed in there. It is both a great and horrible feeling. Gratitude and a happy tenderness at being able to touch someone else, mixed with a sad pang of disappointment at not catching that piece of your heart hidden in your creation before you displayed it to the world to find for you. We are a selfish people with selfish moments. A number of songs go unheard because we are all singing. No one stops to listen anymore. We are all too busy pushing to be felt, and appreciated. We strive too hard to make our artwork known, but how can we ever be expected to be discovered if we don't first discover someone else...

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. - Ayn Rand

Oh the complications of the heart...