The Perennial Debate

I took this picture when I was in the Appalachian mountains with my good friend, Matthew. The wind was gently waving, the trees were softly swaying, and this field was awash with red. It was a scene of beauty, a place of serenity, peace, and calm. This is the kind of place where someone would want to sit, and meditate, take stock of one's life, think about what was truly important and worth pursuing in life. One could be seated here forever and enjoy the peace of this place and breathe slowly.

I took this picture leaning across Matthew from the passenger side of the car, quickly snapping the shutter as I struggled to point the camera out of the driver side window. The car had barely stopped. More cars were coming behind; we had seconds to get the job done. I was sure it'd be a blurry shot; it was definitely going to be poorly framed. My only hope was to document some of that stunning red so as to aid memory recall later; we weren't sure what plant that was.

Stability, changelessness, calm - is this the true nature of reality? This picture fosters in my imagination and yours the sensation of a field of eternal rest; but the circumstances under which I took the picture were anything but. They were high-intensity seconds of hyper-scrambled creativity and wishful thinking. I actually snapped a ton of pictures, hoping against hope that one might turn out. This one did, as did one other. By presenting this picture to you, I can usurp the reality that it pretends to convey, and replace it with another one that we long for ... a reality dominated by peace, eternity, stability, rest. Is it wrong of me to usurp the supposed "reality" which was "taking place" when I took the picture? On the contrary, I think that is the role of the artist. The first medium of the artist is his or her own soul; in the chaotic, ever-changing flux of life, the artist creates a world of eternity and peace in his or her own soul; in a way, he usurps reality, not with a photograph, but with a self-image. That is the creative act - to create something else besides the Creation. The second medium is external; he or she captures moments, or facets, or perspectives, and explores them in a created eternity. Art captures reality and holds it for awhile. If reality is a flowing river, art is those huge, joyful rocks that make the water swirl back around.

Since the beginning of philosophy, an epic, passionate debate has raged. The history of philosophy has been one big showdown between two heavyweights of the mind: Parmenides and Heraclitus. Parmenides taught that change is an illusion, that ultimately reality is unchanging, one, eternal, stable. Heraclitus taught that the fundamental basis of reality is that it has no fundamental basis - it is always changing, coming into being, receding into darkness. There is no foundation "behind" the "veil" of our sensory perception of the world which always changes. Reality is change. Or as he said "Changing, it rests."

I left my apartment of two years, my job of three years, my friends in Chicago, my Chicago routines ... I have uprooted myself, and am living the nomadic life - now, quite literally, as I'm on a road trip, and have no address - but in a few days, I will be in Iceland, living a completely new life ... which will then be uprooted as well in three months. Uprooted? Was I ever rooted? Life is motion. Stability is an illusion. I have cast my lot with Heraclitus. The artist doesn't find eternity; he creates it.