We've almost hit December already, which managed to sneak up a bit sooner than feels necessary. Thankfully though, there are still a bunch of opportunities to try and wrestle some conceptualisation to the ground and beat it into submission.
That's basically an obnoxious way of saying that I'm still trying to draw threads between the practical application of creativity, and the abstraction of ethereal influences on inspiration. The two are always intrinsically tied to one another, which is why I often fail to find my way back to a practical point.
So let's give it another shot, because there are times when we must accept where we are coming from and stick to it. In fact, that's kind of been a theme in my life this past week, which has involved a whole lot of late nights and thought provoking experiences. In a way I've learned a little about myself, as well as a whole lot about other people. No matter when I find myself in this sort of flux, one thing always rings true: assumptions are harmful.
It's been a mantra of mine since I was a teenager and it dawned on me that a lot of our behaviour is a reaction to something we assume about someone or something else. As social beings, we spend a lot of time concerned with other people, which isn't exactly a revelatory insight, but it seems we could still do with being reminded from time to time. I would bet that most of us know what it's like to have someone behave a certain way around us, because of something false that they assume to be true.
Often I think it's an innocent bit of bad communication or misread signals. I like to think that most of us aren't out there purposefully sending social misinformation to our peers, so I'll go with the notion that these are all happy accidents colliding with varying degrees of reaction.
As a relatively quiet and introverted person, I've often been accused of intentions that were far from the reality of the truth. It seems that most people believe what they hear other people say, for better or worse. So if you're someone who spent most of their life with their mouth shut, people start filling in the blanks however they see fit. Before too long, some folks will manage to weave an intricate tapestry of assumptions that form their entire interpretation of you as a person.
I honestly can't remember how many times I've been accused of things that never existed in the first place. Note that there's a difference between being accused of something and being questioned about it. I always welcome questions that help clear out those nasty assumptions, as the accusations leave little room for understanding. After all, that's all it's about in the end. We tend to fill in gaps with assumptions about things that we're either too embarrassed to ask about, or just have no clue what to expect.
I guess that's where gossip comes from: when a group of people choose to discuss assumptions about a person, instead of communicating with them to find the truth. I mean, it's no surprise that people are obsessed with other people, but maybe we should try not to be.
It's easy for us to identify why we shouldn't idolise celebrities or "famous" people, because these days we know that the person we see in the media and the one that exists in reality, are often completely different. Look at any time a revelation has hit the media about someone behaving badly and how that changes our perception. I wonder if anyone thinks about Mel Gibson in the same way after they've heard the tapes of him abusing his wife.
At the same time, is it actually anyone's business and do we deserve to always know the truth? I swear this is relevant to art, so just bear with me a little longer. Anyway, perhaps there is such a thing as a private life and all the gory details don't need to be shared around. I see myself as an open book, as I'm happy to talk about anything with anyone, but at the same time I prefer to keep my business to myself. It sounds contradictory, but all it really means is that I'd rather not go around advertising every little detail of my life to other people. Partly because I don't want to fuel the gossip fire, but mostly because I simply don't think it's anyone's business. I'm equally not interested in other people's private lives in a general sense. Of course if someone wanted to involve me and share things with me, I'm interested in helping them out and doing what I can in the situation, but I still don't think I deserve or need to know anything about anyone.
However, this doesn't mean that all those gaps in knowledge have to be filled with assumptions. Instead, they can stay as gaps and we can all go about our day. When something needs to be known that is currently unknown, that's when the book opens up and truth is shared. Outside of those instances, the rest is meaningless and frankly, boring.
As an easy analogy, it seems that everyone is obsessed with everyone else's sex life, no matter how embarrassed they are to mention sex anyway. I guess it's a primal imperative of human nature, but I honestly don't give a shit about anyone else's sexual experiences. I hope that everyone is happy and if anything untoward goes down, then I'm always there to fight the good fight, but on a mundane day-to-day basis… who gives a shit?
I use this as an example because I've experienced the fallout of people speculating and making assumptions about my own sex life in the past. People have come to me third-hand to ask about ex-girlfriends and what happened between us, which I'm never a fan of answering. I mean, there's always two sides to every story, so I try to stay out of scenarios that involve people other than myself. I don't always succeed, but that's the goal either way. The downside of not getting into the gossip is that it leaves people without any additional information, which sometimes means they have to create an assumption to satisfy their curiosity.
I mentioned at the top that this week has been one of interesting experiences that raised some of these concerns directly. On about three separate occasions in the last seven days, I've had the opportunity to find out what others have assumed about me. It's simultaneously enlightening and frustrating, as these assumptions have led to negative outcomes, but overall it's fascinating to find out what people are capable of coming up with. Fascinating, and disappointing.
After all, nobody will ever experience the world in the way that we uniquely inhabit our own reality. Our subjective manifestations of the world may overlap in countless ways, but there's no denying that we are each the only ones who know everything about our own behaviour. The upside is that when we share these unique perspectives, we learn just how much we share with others, helping us shorten the division between us.
So when I talk about assumptions and communication, you read it and interpret these words through a filter that relates each concept to one you've experienced in your past. When I talk about reality, we each refer to what we consider to be reality, in order to learn the meaning of the term. It's just the way it works, but it pays to remember how that can distort our perceptions of one another.
Maybe when I'm a quiet person in social scenarios, other people interpret that as being aloof (I've been called that before). It doesn't bother me because perhaps those people have only ever related being quiet socially, with having an aloof personality. We make these appraisals all day so that we can effectively interact with the world in meaningful ways. The real kicker is when we think that everything we think we know, is a reality for everyone. Indeed, it pays dividends to remember that our perspectives are nothing more than limited experiential appraisals of our surroundings, and we may not have all the information.
If we can remember this, we might not be so quick to form assumptions about others, and leave room for the truth to emerge and fill in the gaps. Additionally, I would argue that it's better to leave a gap than fill everything with falsehoods.
All of this has always related directly to the creative process, for as long as I've done anything practical with creativity. I'm not the kind of artist who will go to great lengths to try and explain what any single piece's meaning might be. The truth of the matter is that half the time, there's no meaning to speak of anyway.
I really enjoy it when someone talks to me about my art and offers their own interpretation, because it's often far more nuanced and interesting than anything I could come up with. You'll never see large paragraphs accompanying my art that goes on about the deep meaning, because I'm simply not interested. I'd rather my audience make up their own mind, just as I would rather come to my own interpretation of other people's art.
There are scenarios where the meaning is obvious, which is great when that's the intent of the piece. It would be pretty useless for a protest song to be ambiguous about its political message, so they need to ensure that everyone listening gets switched on to the same vibe. However, an abstract existential painting about emotion and lived experience will never equate to another person as a facsimile.
To take it even a step further, I've exhibited series' of paintings that literally have no meaning and had no intentions behind them at all when I painted them. I often like just making shapes and colours on how they feel at the time and nothing more. It cracks me up and thrills me then, that these paintings have been some of the most controversial works I've ever done. One even had a friend sitting down with me to have a serious talk about the powerful emotional reaction they had with a piece that meant nothing to me. However, they assumed that because I had made something that evoked such a reaction from them, I must be suffering in the same way. It's a beautiful conversation to have, but it only serves to expose how easily we are willing to fill in the gaps when we interpret abstract concepts for ourselves.
So all of this DOES relate to art (ha-ha) and is something I think about a lot. It might not surprise you to learn that I don't put much thought into any of the weekly doodles I post here, because that's the nature of the project. Or maybe it will surprise you to learn that I put a great deal of thought into each and every one, which means they all have deep and significant meanings to me.
The truth is, you'll never know for sure unless I tell you, because I know all the answers around my own actions. Just as I hope you are down with all the aspects of your own behaviour. The real truth is that none of it matters and I'm not really interested anyway.
Let's just stop reacting to assumptions like they mean anything substantial. They might help us fill in the gaps and move through the world, but they need to be discarded as soon as they start to matter. Anything else is dangerous and that's when people get hurt for simply being their innocent selves.
Judge not.