The reclamation of one's damaged eyesight.

'The broken bridge analogy, and its rebuilding.'

To explore, witness and record; beauty, motions and emotion. A melody incapsulating the rhythm of the passage of our time, these are but the little pleasures one gets from reflecting his eye's reflection. The dazzling aroma and perpetual freedom one gets drunk to when exposed to this delicate and intoxicated state. In my life, sketching this plethora of emotions were the bridge that connected the world that I saw, to the world that I was coexisting in. An act of a personal dictionary to find the explanation to the words that tantalized one's brain. For a time, this bridge ceased to be raised, laying broken and unusable, my ability to eloquently describe the version of the shared world, had all but been forgotten. The words that once brought joy and reason to this elaborate emotions that caressed me so warmly, ceased to exist. A feeling of abandonment replaced in its absence, leaving me exposed to the empty and cold words of bitter and unhappy people to be the description and meaning of this world. An endless cycle of broken dreams and scatter ideas of what individualism once meant, bestowed to the few, for many to blatantly follow. Years would pass, living in a constant state of detachment from my own descriptive voice of this world, perpetuated in a constant need to feel whole again. In feeling this lost sensation of endless questioning and observation, I falsely allowed myself in being silenced by the undescriptive and monochromatic influences of this world; stripping the beauty and desire that once were, to wither and die before my very eyes. In the year that followed of my departure and conclusion of "FLOW" did I take notice of this absence; broken and detached bricks that once held the bridge connecting my world to the shared world. Scattered in every direction, in what appeared to be in an egotistic blaze of madness, no ill or unexpected phenomena had cause the distraction of the bridge, but the very own wrath and negligence of the builder himself; for his ignorance caused the very foundation to shift and crack. Upon realizing that, did I seek forth the knowledge to amend my negligence, in educating myself, of myself, the simple step of taking accountability of my own actions. I began learning the distractive tendencies that brought this effect to fruition, unaware of the damage that I have been causing to my own eyes; the slow poking and stabbing that I have subjected them to, slowly blinding them, blinding...me. In this long year search, did I began lifting this veil over my eyes, mending these self inflicted wounds, and allowing me to reclaim my eyesight again; to observe, sense and understand what I could not before. For this reclamation brought forth my ability to rebuild that bridge once broken by my own hand, blossoming forth the art of sketching and capturing my everchanging thoughts through the environments that I was going to be exposed in my travels.

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Realization

Drawing again, a familiar warmth and embrace much like the first day of spring would bring after a long and cold winter. The yearning of caress that overwhelms, like two enormous warm arms, embracing me, sheltering me from the unknown, nesting me from the ill sadness of my own loneliness. A feeling closely describe as motherly love, to an abandoned child wondering aimlessly in a peculiar and hostile world. A pillar to uphold the appetite of exploration and intrinsic history that brought life; it had me reflect on the stories and references of the structural foundation of this world. Be it based on slaughter,.. genocide...famine, greed and need, but equally the sheer progress of pathos to live and steer in the creation of the most elaborate thoughts and ideas once pondered over and felt. A plethora of doorways opened my way, to the endless possibilities of perspectives one could witness if determined to use their own set of eyes. Avoiding life's modern digitalized means to describe its beauty and effect. Inevitably replacing our own eyesight with a collective of overused and heavily filtered lenses. To apply their moral compass as their guidance, without their egotistic needs of the lavish greed that was etched in our minds. Undoubtedly did I find myself mesmerized by all this perplexity. To many, the world would pass unnoticed, uninteresting and apathetic, if the world is not to give them their required transactional currency of choice. For the details that showed us our historical mistakes are forgotten and swept out of sight, replaced by a sunken rectangular glass in everyone's palms. Many details and events that are etched on the very land we walk, is but taken out of context and used for profitable gain, to the many artistic breakthroughs and to the wonders of intrinsic value of architectural advances. All miraculously tied together to create a homogenous utopia of consumerism; breading routines that forfeit the wonder and explorative state we all were born in, with a designated slot for material gain. Through this realization, my urge grew in whishing to depict life in this world, in my own limited and damaged eyesight. No longer would I utter the words I know but admit my hunger of knowledge, to know. This time, I felt in tune with mind, self and eyesight, no longer fighting or trying to match each other. For now I feel we walk a parallel line, no longer using each other as excuse of the shortcomings that come, but simply a unified entity...a human. For each place I will travel and experience, the use of this three elements would be essential in capturing and reflecting the reflections that I would see.

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Reclamation

In this act of reclamation, I began capturing the environments that I would visit. Closely looking through a foreigner's eye of the wonders that appeared in front of me. Feeling and breathing it with the empathetic and emotional soul that I posses and listening and paying attention to it as a person seeking knowledge from a teacher's wise and lush words. All recorded together on a blank white paper, be it written or drawn, every thought and every emotion that my limited self could comprehend. Emphasized by the sheer amount of diversity this new world possesses, underlining my every word and shape, for without it, nothing would have ever looked and felt more alive. Upon further inspection of such diversity, I witnessed everyone's own life and routines in the moment that I was given; the invincible threads of similarities that bound every single one of us to each other, summarized by a four letter word, fear. For every motion and action that I saw in one way or another operated based or conclusive to fear. To which thoughts of our primal ancestry would come to mind, for fear would be their compass of survival, but I somehow knew, this fear, that the 21st century was experiencing, was demonstrably different, in which four letters couldn't begin to describe it. In this very similarity that bound us together, did the biggest division of human interactions brewed. Self-grown in our own digitalized bubbles, unaware of our actions and reaction to the world, spoon fed by our chosen social circles that rewarded and unchallenged our every thoughts. Absolving us of the world's desires and requests, do we keep on taking and abusing every kindness one may find along the way. Practicing the art of manipulation and gain, and using every possible method to recruit and exploit every newcomer that comes in life, into our selfish and egocentric cause. Recreating history with different actors and settings, but with the highest amount of audience in history to ever enjoy and be affected by such 'thespian artistry'. "To that, my pencil and mind felt the urge to capture this. To transform life to stories and illustrations; underlining the problems with examples and elaborate compositions, that words alone would crumble in comparison of the experience in seeing this powerless state in stopping nor controlling this. Leaving emptiness and loneliness to take a hold of you, creating the perfect breeding ground of bitterness and contempt; a premature death." Unaware was I picking up scents in my walks through my travels, fragrances that I have never picked up before, every person that would pass by, a giant cloud of intense aroma would accompany them, accompanying their every stride with a heavy odor. A manufactured smell, a lifeless description of what nature's scent, poorly described in a hasty explanation. Conveniently, every scent anyone could ever imagine, would come in a colorful bottle of bliss with a shimmering label, promising eternal attraction and lust to the passerby that smelled it. To that I reflected; what was the drive behind this...everyone bought a look, a scent and idea, a persona. Proudly worn, like badges of honor, distinctly presented on their chests, burying their unique identities further still, sentencing them indefinitely in never seeing the light of day. To what it seemed an absence of questioning of the affect of such choice, did I try to vividly imagine such a moment in my life where I felt surrounded by so many people, that no longer seemed familiar nor quite "people". For the sheer numbers didn't seem comforting as once did, being sheltered by many seemed all too suffocating. Leaving no room to breath nor move outside of this trans like state that was achieved in our evolution .Creating vast stretched out lanes that everyone is required to fall in line, being more concerned of what the person in front and behind thinks of us, to ever consider what we think of us. A time of pure detachment of our intrinsic feelings that matter to us, no longer being able to comprehend nor pinpoint ourselves with our words but constantly outsourcing our vocabulary with an obscene amount of mindless babble and empty gestures. Incomprehensible and distorted of every sliver of emotion that it might have ever possessed, dwindling down to flavorless, unappealing sounds. Furthering the damage to our own eyes.... encouraging the slow plucking and pocking away of our own unique vision of this shared world.

Epilogue

The explorative drawings and observations of this new journey in my travels, can be found and experienced on the drawing collection part of the website. Feel free to explore and experience the new discoveries. (press the highlighted text to be taken there) The world around me changed since I last was in it. Evolution and time, swiftly shifted the known to the unknown, leaving a trail to be followed, to catch up. Everyday, I spend pondering and observing the massive leap that was taken. I cannot help but bring out the commonalities that I see in crowds; the feelings and emotions that still ground us to our roots, of being humans and flawed and not trying to match the machinery counterparts that we all fell so in love with since the end of the 20th century. For history and art and time, is purely a result of a pair of eyes who just so happened to be open at the time of its passing. Recorded and shared to either warn, embrace or rejoice of what came, or to what is still to come. An imprint, for generations to ponder of what came before, in hopes to explore.