Being in New York again has reminded me of that particular mega-urban experience of immediate distance. The fact that you can be standing shoulder to shoulder with someone on the subway and yet functionally be worlds apart. There is, as a friend of mine once described it, a forcefield that keeps strangers at bay. This is necessary for functioning somewhere like Manhattan, for if one were to truly take in all the social energy inherent in a day, one would fast become schitzophrenic.
I imagine these walls dissolving yet they feel real as brick or wood. What would occur if we treated these walls we depend on as permeable? What if our protective shells became transparent thus giving strangers unfettered access to our internal worlds?
I think of an egg. At once solid and yet so fragile. Easy to break with the slightest error in movement. But eggs have another quality. While solid they are translucent. Light can, to a limited degree, pass through them. So too with our social walls. No matter how strong a front we put on some spark of that inner world is accessible to the acute observer. At times one must invert the actions of another to understand them, rage as fear for example, while other times the truth hides to the side in a nervous tic or an unconscious sigh.
The human soul has often been represented in spiritual writings as a light. A brightly(or dimly) shining light which expresses the true essence and Being of the individual. One image I have heard often is of the light of a lamp. The lamp may get covered in dirt and soot. It may scratch and become dull. Through all these transformations, the light inside the lamp remains unchanged.
Perhaps the dirt metaphor is true but it is an incomplete truth. I have seen that “inner light” grow brighter and dimmer over time. Perhaps then actualizing human authenticity is a more complex thing than merely wiping away the accumulated dirt. One must also stoke the flames of that inner light. Authenticity is not merely finding a deeply hidden secret, it is the very quest itself. It is a searching. A reaching. It is a going beyond the now and into the possible. That is where the authentic lies.
We return to that egg. An egg is not whole and complete in itself. It is a beginning. It is a possibility. The being that is in the process of becoming must break through that egg shell in order to become.
When we are around people who are easily excitable or easily upset we talk of “walking on egg shells” to avoid causing upset. Those egg shells, at the risk of now mixing my metaphors, are the dirt and scratches which diminish the glow from our inner light. Perhaps those shells are a false lamp containing the inner light. Perhaps those egg shells should be walked upon. Perhaps those eggshells should be broken open to reveal what is inside. For hiding in the comfort of excitability and upset hurts both the individual and those around them.
Those egg shells provide the individual with a great protection or so it first appears. At the risk of causing upset, those around the excitable person go to great and extreme lengths to avoid causing upset. As such the shell grows larger, the triggers for upset grow slighter, and those in constant reaction must now be on an even greater vigilance to not upset the shell.
But those shells are just that, shells. A covering that masks from view the inner uncertainty, self doubt, ineptitude or incompetence. Flying into rages force those around you to focus on the rage rather than what it is hiding. If these shells could be illuminated to see through them into the inner core beyond them, their inherently thin and translucent nature would fast be revealed.
The image of an egg is a metaphor of manifold meaning. It is the very symbol of beginning and possibility. It is a spirit on the verge of being born.
I am not sure how this will manifest in my work, but I am curious in exploring the translucent nature of these human shells. Installations or sculpture is the immediate medium that comes to mind. Possibly performance although doing so would necessitate a wider scope than mere lighting design provides.
I am enjoying this avenue of thought and am curious to see where it leads.
