21x29 cm, pencil/graphite
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Beyond the "I" and "We" (Writers Island)
Sometimes I ask myself: “How much of me is accessible to another? How much of another is accessible to me? What are the limits and how far can the interaction between two beings go? I can touch someone’s hand; feel the shape of their bodies, use language and gesture to communicate emotions and abstractions. I can yet look deep into their eyes and be convinced that there is a soul behind the eyes, one that thinks, feels and works independent of my relations to it or feelings towards it.
To look into the eyes of a person you love wholeheartedly is bound to be an emotionally deep way of absorbing what spoken words could only partially sustain, such is the immediacy and directness by which the eyes portray us. But then, not even that seems to be enough. And if sexual intercourse demonstrates full potential for both physical and emotional exchange, our brains usually can only take in so much of the experience. It’s as almost as if there was a mental threshold preventing us from surpassing the personal level of experience. Could I ever see life though the eyes of another? Merge so completely with another as to not being able to separate the parts from the whole? Feel below one’s skin and see into one’s thoughts?
One of the fascinating features of human consciousness is that it exists on so many levels, and can be exercised in so many ways. And while a transpersonal assertion may sound idealistic in one way or another, I bet it’s anything but. It’s also funny to think that if we’re not fully tangible to others, no more are we fully tangible to ourselves. Such makes the quest for the ego shattering experience of great value to processing our world view beyond the tight spaces of a single minded framework. Easier said than done.
To look into the eyes of a person you love wholeheartedly is bound to be an emotionally deep way of absorbing what spoken words could only partially sustain, such is the immediacy and directness by which the eyes portray us. But then, not even that seems to be enough. And if sexual intercourse demonstrates full potential for both physical and emotional exchange, our brains usually can only take in so much of the experience. It’s as almost as if there was a mental threshold preventing us from surpassing the personal level of experience. Could I ever see life though the eyes of another? Merge so completely with another as to not being able to separate the parts from the whole? Feel below one’s skin and see into one’s thoughts?
One of the fascinating features of human consciousness is that it exists on so many levels, and can be exercised in so many ways. And while a transpersonal assertion may sound idealistic in one way or another, I bet it’s anything but. It’s also funny to think that if we’re not fully tangible to others, no more are we fully tangible to ourselves. Such makes the quest for the ego shattering experience of great value to processing our world view beyond the tight spaces of a single minded framework. Easier said than done.
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