SED Artist

“I build my memories with my present. I am rejected, abandoned in the present. I try in vain to re-join the past: I cannot escape from myself.”

Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea.

In Huis Clos, one of Sartre’s most famous plays, three characters are trapped in a room together for eternity, addressing the perpetual struggle of having to view oneself through the eyes of another. This idea terrifies me, it seems to annihilate everything I thought I knew and believed in, suggesting that my existence only happens if other people see it, see me. In this universe, there are things we ‘know’, things we ‘think’ we ‘know’, and then there are things we ‘believe’ in, and things we ‘believe’ in although we ‘don’t quite know’. For example, the theoretical basis of modern physics, Quantum Theory, which explains the nature and behaviour of matter and energy on atomic and subatomic levels but can only be recorded with a measuring device Without it, the recognizable properties of quantum particles do not exist at all (Wigmore, 2020). Mirroring this idea, is the philosophical debate: “If a tree falls in a forest, and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. This has been discussed by philosophers for centuries, and from what I have read and understood, depending on the interpretation of the word ‘sound’ and if it refers to the ‘human experience’ as opposed to the ‘physical phenomenon’, then in fact, if there is no one around, a falling tree does not make a sound. In both these examples, ‘truth’ is relative to its surrounding receptors (Sullivan, 2013). If I apply this way of thinking to humans, and more significantly, to myself and my own surrounding environment, it implies that the things I do, matter only if they are perceived or received by people who also exist in relation to me.

Not long ago, I found myself sitting on a bench alongside my friend, smoking a cigarette, waiting patiently for time to pass. As I swung my legs back and forth, listening to her speak, a feeling of existential unease arose. It is a feeling that creeps up on me, sleeping by me at night and becoming me in the morning, wrapping my head in cotton and taking away any control I had the day before. I know I look and act the same but somehow, I am no longer me. When I say, ‘existential unease’, I mean a non-existent feeling, mixed with a dark and unavoidable sadness, where you lose yourself and become something else entirely, something which tends to find itself hidden in the depths of nothing. ‘Nothing’ is both utterly terrifying and completely peaceful, an empty void in which all light and being is lost. ‘Lost’ though, cannot be the right word, as in ‘nothingness’ there is no passing of time, therefore, there never ‘was’ in the first place. You cannot lose something that never ‘was’. It is amongst this darkness that the mere existence of my being does not suffice in itself to become anything at all.

As the cigarette burnt away in my hand, my friend’s thoughts and words were carried through me with the wind, ‘I wonder if they ever get cold?’. We were watching the swans gliding in the water. ‘Hmm, probably’ I replied nonchalantly, at a half-hearted attempt to keep the conversation going. She didn’t seem phased by the absence of my words and continued voicing her stream of thoughts, as I sat there, bewildered by her presence alongside mine.

People wandered past my swinging legs, like stuck in a time loop destined to never end, and I felt that the world existed around me, but I was not there. Most days, unlike this one, I feel at peace, satisfied with my thoughts and relationships whose clarity in my mind matches up to reality. Sporadically though, I feel my absence; I do not belong because once things have happened, they are no longer mine. The universe has no use for them, so they simply cease in being, and I am left attached to nothing. Like the characters in Huis Clos, I struggled to exist alone in that moment, grounded into the surface of the universe simply through the existence of a friend. Had she not been there, I might as well have been the ashes of my cigarette floating into the wind, a mere ‘thing’ whose effect on the present is forgotten the moment it has fulfilled its existence. The feeling is always momentary, what varies is the length of it, something upon which I have no control. During these times, no matter where I am and no matter who I may be with, I stumble at the thought of my own reality in this world, an existence which I cannot seem to grasp.

*

There is comfort in my despair because it lets me give up. It wraps me in a warm blanket

and lets me slide away from watchful eyes, it allows me to ignore the people I love and who love me because it takes away any respect, love, or empathy I have towards anyone I know. And yet, I invariably convince myself that once I have conquered it, it will never return. I have deluded myself into believing that I am stronger than it, even though I fall victim to its element of surprise, and let it defeat me every time, becoming weaker with every blow.

Whether you are a writer or not, you will have heard of ‘The Rule of Three’. They say that if you want something to stick in someone’s mind, put it in a sequence of three as it is a powerful communication technique and will be more effective and memorable than presenting ideas in any other recurrence. Groups of three reoccur frequently throughout the history of writing, in novels, fairy tales and myths, for example, the three Musketeers, the three Stooges, configurations of Maiden/Mother/Crone, the Morai (three fates) and the Riddle of the Sphinx (Oedipus) whose analogy represents childhood, adulthood, and old age. As you can see, Triads in most forms of literature are particularly ubiquitous (Forsyth, 2022).

In Science, three is the smallest possible number of elements required to create a pattern. So, if three is the first possible pattern, it is also the most predominant and memorable one, and is the most significant in my own life, or that I have noticed at least. Three’s surround me and seem to recur in the strangest of ways. Quite a few of my friendships, especially growing up, appeared to manifest in threes; my family of six is separated into two groups of three, and my romantic relationships have always involved one person too many, in which case the pattern becomes a crowd and causes things to fall apart. What I attempt to demonstrate here, is that everything I seem to do, create, love, or share, ends up existing to me only if it also exists alongside something else. Even if something manifests between me and another person, it then must be observed by a third in order to exist between the both of us. I don’t think that Huis Clos would work if it were only two people stuck in a room.

*

In a moment of darkness, when reality fell away and I was left to my own mind, which

I do not always trust to keep me safe, my neighbour started playing her guitar, and in that small moment, she held me. Laying there, savouring this feeling, the sound of her soft sporadic strumming grounded my heart to my ears, to my mind, to my bed.

There is a metaphysical stance where mind and body are considered two distinct substances, each with a different essential nature. This is one of Renée Descartes’ longest lasting legacies, the ‘Mind-Body Dualism’, influencing some of the most famous philosophers, mathematicians and writers including, but not limited to, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, where he argues that it is possible for one to exist without the other (Skirry, n.d). My body often exists separate to my mind; some mornings I wake up and I am two separate beings, one mental and one physical. The mind is the one that struggles. The world feels too heavy and it does not bear the weight of it. I have discovered the cure though, or maybe more of a temporary nostrum: music. Like with the soft strum of my neighbour’s guitar, music connects my body to my mind in the simplest of ways, entering my body, traversing my brain, and emerging as an emotion. The emotion then materialises physically, becoming tears, laughter, or song. It can alter my mood, just as it can sustain it, deepen it, or heal it. When I exist as ‘one’, I read and watch things, and I do so with great affection. I love stories and I love characters, they have so much to say, and there is always something to learn, to cry or to love. Recently, I have loved and cherished the words of Sartre and Kundera, two exceptional writers who vary in their philosophical notions but explore the deeper meaning of ‘being’ in a world where they cannot seem to understand the rules, which have no merit in their minds and its detachment from their bodies.

There is a concept, a romantic one, where people surrender the power of their existence to one partner. Kundera explores this through his perceptions of these attachments, and his preference for multiple women, therefore affording his vulnerabilities to no one. There is a distinct vulnerability in surrendering the perception of yourself to another; trusting and committing to the risk that your own perception might conflict with theirs. I have watched people do this, struggling against their own ideas of each other and yet consequently, they merge into a singular entity. It seems they extend themselves, their lives, and their memories – essentially all that constitutes them – to another person, who in return, does the same. In the collision of these two people, a new universe is born, one which could not have been achieved alone. Maybe this outcome outweighs the risk factor. Perception, in this distinction, simply becomes the first step to surmount. Maybe this is what Kundera pursued through multiple women. Their differences made them desirable, offering him perceptions he could not provide himself, therefore making it impossible for him to surrender the universes that had emanated through them.

*

There’s a pattern, I think, to the way in which the world carries you, and carries others.

According to Spirituality, this ‘pattern’ is called Destiny, or Fate. I don’t believe in Fate. Fate pulls you along a path predetermined for you, giving you no choice in its direction, nor the speed at which you progress or the obstacles along the way. I do, however, believe in Destiny. They say Destiny refers to predetermined events in our lives but, contrary to Fate, ones which we have the power to shape and change. It plays a role in determining our life path and is often defined by what we feel or recognise will be valuable for our spiritual journey. In following our spiritual nature, we choose to hone qualities like compassion, courage, and willpower, alongside which we can begin to shape our future and therefore, our Destiny (Staff, 2021). It is generally a concept that continues to change throughout an individual’s life, altered by their perception of the universe and their place within it.

These past three years (even the stages of my life manifest in Triads), I have felt constrained, unable to become what I knew was meant for me; I know that these things still belong to me, and I will find them again along the way. If I had chosen to leave – an act of courage or cowardice, I know not quite which – the intricacy of who I am today, the things I have written and artworks I have created, simply would not be, and for that I am grateful. Last night as I scribbled in my journal, I got carried away with the speed of my pen and as my fury came to an end, I made a proclamation: “I am grateful for the pain”.

As an artist, or aspiring one (because ‘what defines an artist?’) I have delved deep into the displacement of my being, categorised through my physical displacement from my home (which I chose), and my mental displacement from my family, friends, and from myself. As a parallel progression to my personal and spiritual journey, my creative evolution has been enthralling. I have held an intrigue into the exploration of human existentialism and allowed my emotions to determine new paintings that come to mind. Here, a new duality is born between ‘Mind’ and ‘Body of work’. French novelist, Marcel Proust, proclaims in his theories of conscious experience that art functions by evoking memory and psychological association techniques, whereby the observers stream of thought is indirectly controlled (Epstein, 2004). It is important to assess that, although the observers’ thoughts are governed, to an extent, by the material they face, they are also framed by their own experiences, or their own perceptions of ‘reality’. Proust relies heavily upon the ‘subjectivity of reality’ discussed here, constituting the basis of his theoretical practise. Comparably, my own ideas, like my artworks, also lean on subjectivity, topically regarding other people’s perception of another, or our own existence in the face of those who surround us. My own conceptions of ‘reality’ are skewered, it seems, by something called ‘depersonalisation’, a dissociative disorder triggered by things which I have never truly endured myself, such as severe stress, abuse, being exposed to traumatic events or overusing drugs at a young age.

This notion was put forward to me by my therapist, who wasn’t truly my therapist, but more of a sort of mediator. He made a great deal about the ‘diagnosis’ not being ‘official’, which every therapist does, with their grey eyes, their grey hair, and their grey skin, cowered by their grey walls, determining my predicament, and subsequently taking away any credibility by stating: “Remember, this is not an official diagnosis”, leaving me amid nowhere, with nothing.

He wasn’t grey though, and although the walls were, they had a warmth to them, as did he, and when he told me about ‘depersonalisation’, I had a feeling. A feeling in my body and my heart, in my mind and in my soul, which connected into a singular being and found truth in what I was being told. Within seconds of his suggestion, I knew he was right, and when he read out to me all that it meant, I started laughing, and then I cried.

*

My ceiling looks so inviting; staring up at it in the middle of the night, consumed by the melancholic mix of music in my ears, I see shapes to draw and objects to paint, a large blank canvas waiting for me to unleash my sadness, unveil my distain for the heavy weight of the world that sits upon my shoulders.

An epiphany has come to me. I am not so worried about the perception that another has of me, I don’t think I truly care about that. What I am afraid of however, is the power that one has given to another, which, in their own perception of ‘you’, can affect you and change the way you perceive yourself. I have spent years, all my life in fact, trying to figure myself out and come to terms with all the complicated parts of ‘me’, who hates soggy foods, can’t bear repetitive sounds, gets seasonal depression, is sarcastic most of the time, gets severe mood swings but also laughs a lot. Now that I have begun to accept those parts, I would not have the strength to judge them any differently. Giving that power to someone and letting them use it to change the perception of myself, simply to match their own, would surely change the way I see my friends, the world, and consequently, my place within it. Of course, I acknowledge that my perceptions are shaped everyday by the people and things I surround myself with, but that occurs only to a certain extent. Giving so much to a singular person would surely have a far larger impact. I don’t think I can do that.

My existence then bears no recognition to myself, it recognises itself solely in the eyes of whoever creates it, and as it turns out, I am not the only person creating ‘me’