CRYSTALINE
Crystals cascade,
as if the sun resides in tears.
My body ensnared in a space
where solid power envelops.
Radiance slowly dims.
Heat transforms into cold.
Motion then materializes
through a soft yet stern presence.
A melody begins,
vocalizing this serene expanse,
infusing it with joy and enchantment.
Thus, that power bursts forth.
Moments of my soul's journey
transform darkness into radiance,
halt the dance of motion,
and rekindle warmth in the cold.
My psyche dismantles the power,
leaving scenes in the past.
While crystals fade away,
leaving the earth bathed in fluids.
They moisten the ground,
soak it with crystalline liquids.
But I know the time
will form the earth anew.
HISTORY IS A MYSTERY
I wasn’t born in a period when Adolf Hitler controlled Germany.
I wasn’t born in the century when Abraham Lincoln issued an emancipation proclamation.
Those who aren’t witnesses in history will understand and interpret based on only pieces of evidence they have access to. For this reason, to me, history is complicatedly layered and is still a mystery. It raises a question: “Who is actually a hero?” and “Who should have actually been a felon?” The struggle for rights and democratic pluralism is dynamic, as well as history.
The statues of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, are explicitly dominant. My vulnerability arises from their enormous scale and ascendant materiality—masculine cement and metal. Their power is not to encourage but rather to intimidate.
Why are they elevated much higher than human level?
Clearly, the statues represent only one voice, and I feel disconnected. The statues of Confederate leaders have widely open space, but the invisible boundary is still there to be felt. It stops me from stepping closer. Yes, the truth is their history is related to pro-slavery. The truth is these statues are elevated as the past emperors. The truth is these statue-scapes are rendered the concept of the empire, transmitting the past to the present, “classification.”
Maggie Walker's statue in the Art District, Richmond, VA, embraces the public. Her scale—her success—is reachable, which communicates the power of leadership, not the empire. An African-American woman who devoted her life to civil rights and educational opportunities when races seemed to control liberation hard; she brings hope to the African American community. Her pedestal is adorned with maternal illustrations depicting her as a teacher engaged with children, symbolizing more than one voice. Sadly, she isn’t as well-known as Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis. This is because the 'scale of her success' was way less heroic than those powerful men. However, her success is surely a genuine source of pride that people should appreciate more.
Something large doesn’t always mean greatness. If the purpose of statues is to commemorate history, the production should be neutral, not leading to public debate, argument, and conflict. The strength of materials will always communicate value and story. It is true; we should praise people for their significant successes, but we should also keep in mind that not all successes are innocent.
However, personally, I view history as skepticism; it is fluid, subtle, and malleable. It is molded. It is a memory. It is difficult to retrieve, and the more we try to remember, the more we try to shape it. We, as human, come from different centuries and have different thoughts; we were born with different races to have different beginnings. More historical proofs are still waiting to be found, and once they are found, history will be molded again. The best way to contemplate history is to critically consider which parts of history are most eager to uphold to preserve the bests of the past, not the worsts.
FACE YOUR FEAR
In the midst
of the darkness,
there is a presence
of the unknown.
I am trapped.
It crushes my bone,
burns my brain,
and pains my soul.
I nearly faint
driven to loss.
Suddenly,
I sight the light.
I see an escape
to shatter the fright,
to seek relief
from the horrors.
I now reach
robust reveries,
embracing
dazzling spheres.
I discover
a vivid terror—
it is never dark.
I paint it black all along.
HERPETOPHOBIA
You.
You keep me hidden in my room.
All I know is I hate you.
You prevent me from rising.
You give me bounds.
Everything stops! when I see you.
I am frozen. I am stuck.
You have an immense power
to kill me suddenly.
Your skin is a silent weapon.
Your slither omits poison.
Your eyes, your voice, weaken me.
I surrender.
Your power is s p r e a d i n g,
covering my courage.
I want to escape and I will.
A MILLIGRAM OF JUSTICE
You, who exist but
should never have been.
Hatred and Division
have grown up among us.
Rooted themselves
wherever they pleased.
You have caused
enough pain.
You will be silenced.
SURREALIZE THE REALITY
Only he who has a different visual opening can see the world in another way.
— Bruno Munari
I remember the first time I saw a school of black fish above my head, swimming towards me slowly. I was seven years old and believed I was in a fish tank—until the car horn blasted in my ear. The fishes turned into raindrops, and I found myself completely wet, standing in front of my school. My father pressed the horn again, “Why are you standing in the rain? Come! Let’s go home.” I gathered myself and returned to a reality where everything was drab and solid, where I felt loneliness and silence, waiting for my dad alone at my school in the late evening.
What I experienced was a type of dream, a vision, arising from my unconscious self but this dream was different from a typical dream over which we have no control. It was a powerful fantasy over which we can take ownership. A daydream is a subjective and personal mental space where things can be anything we wish them to be. It can inspire us to imagine that things could be radically different than the actual world. Dreams and fantasy to me are the purest form of play. As a child, I frequently focused my attention on them to relieve myself from exposure to disturbing contexts and stress. As Lynda Barry, an American cartoonist and author, observed: “We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.”
Dreams are direct projections of the subconscious. They create inherent visions and actions beyond reason, translating inner characteristics and existence into dynamic forms and shapes. Sometimes, these visions can be illogical and last only a few minutes, but they always come from a deep internality. In 1960, D.W. Winnicott, an English psychiatrist, introduced the concepts of the “True Self” and “False Self.” He described a state of being one’s True Self as being in an unforced and spontaneous state. In this state, dreams convey our real self through fleeting imagery. These forms don’t occupy a physical space but exist inside us. To reach this alternative space, we need to reconstruct our perception. “Feeling real is more than existing; it is finding a way to exist as oneself.”
Most of the time we live within the realm of consciousness—in what we call reality. In this stage, we have a sense of clear straight perception and understanding. Certain aspects of reality, however, can force us into a state of feeling controlled or feeling boxed into conventional and external norms. Winnicott described this state as the False Self. These external forces get us out of our comfort zone, with fear, anxiety, and stress preventing us from stepping outside these boundaries to find the answers to the questions we may have and stifling our curiosity. Winnicott also explained that the state of being over controlled could prevent the potential for experiencing “aliveness” and feeling only “emptiness”. In this state, we feel pain, disappointment, and a sense of impossibility. Fortunately, we also possess intellect, enabling us to find ways to get through these undesirable events—dreaming is one such avenue.
To express our True Self in reality, we start by situating ourselves in the realm of the surreal world. Dreams and surreality are theoretically overlapping phenomena; both are internal, fluid, and ambiguous. The only difference is in their “duration.” A dream is temporary, but surreality can be permanent (Suzanne Césaire, 1941). It is clear that a lens of imagination is required to enter this state. In a heart-touching scene from the 2006 movie The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) and his three-year-old son get evicted from a motel after the father can’t pay for his stay. They have nowhere to go, but the father tries to hold things together by making up a fantasy about dinosaurs for his son. The two end up sleeping in the restroom of a metro station where the father has convinced his son is a cave. This magical scenario illustrates what Gaston Bachelard, a French philosopher of psychic productivity and imagination, calls “the calm beaches in the midst of nightmares.” The father uses fantasy to mitigate his own fear and to prevent transmitting it to his son. The next day, his son innocently mentions he would be willing to stay in the cave again (instead of a motel) seeming not to realize the grim reality that surrounded them. In this state, the father creates a surreal world in which his son can place his trust.
Surreality is a perfect nonsense that goes on in the world. Sometimes there is no plausibility at all.
— Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
Living in surreality can influence how we perceive the real world. We may have an illogical perception or see irrational images. Salvador Dalí, a prominent artist and surrealist of the 20th century, has proved how rich the world can be by embracing pure and boundless creativity. “Surrealism is destructive,” he said, “but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” In Dalí’s work, he shows us visual representations of his dreams and hallucinations through exquisite paintings, suspending reality and discovering a new universe. His True Self is communicated, and he makes his mental spaces permanently visible. Within his paintings, there are levels of strong emotion that embed true narratives about himself. For instance, his painting The Great Mastubator (1929) is not just a fantastical painting, but a representation of Dalí’s severely conflicted attitudes towards sexual intercourse. In his youth, his father left out a book with explicit photos of people suffering from advanced, untreated venereal diseases to educate him about the dangers of sex. The photo horrified, yet fascinated him. He continued to associate sex with putrefaction and decay into his adulthood. In adopting this approach, he recontextualized the reality about sexual disease into an engrossing vision.
Recontextualizing reality is to consider reality from different perspectives. These perspectives come mostly from one’s internal latencies such as the subconsciousness and sometimes from deep memories. When Ettore Sottsass, an Italian designer and the founder of Memphis Group, was a small boy, he loved to design cemeteries: “the tombs looked to me like small architectures, very much my size.” His sketches of cemeteries were outwardly patterned and colorful, removing the implication of death from the landscape. Later, his playful visions turned towards furniture and architecture. In this work, he invented unusual and hyper-functional objects based on his moods that he considered to be a major ingredient in his work–more so than any logical function. Sottsass fully lived in the realm of surreality until his last breath.
Considering these examples, what is interesting about dreams and surreality is that we can use them as a filter to reimagine and to irrationally change the assumptions of the immediate world. It allows us to see alternative contexts. As Lubomir Dolezel writes in Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds, “Our actual world is surrounded by an infinity of other possible worlds.” Once we transport ourselves to somewhere else, from a real-time situation, we enter the sphere of surreality. In doing this, we must be concerned that entering this state can be either positive or negative. Horrific hallucinations can occur when we are awake. They are caused by one’s personal traumatic experiences–a stifling sense of insecurity or a response to a natural disaster. They are reactions to situations from which we want to escape rather than situate. When this happens, severe experience or memories overpower the subconscious producing a zone of discomfort in reality. In this state, our memories and fears reinforce the False Self. We must be aware of never letting them become a wall between ourselves and our dreams.
Dreams are not just fantastical perceptual visions; they can be realized through the form of action. In early 2017, there was a sense of emerging political chaos as many people were upset at the result of the U.S. presidential election. To some, it was a traumatic experience, having a person who had taken positions and made statements that were regarded as offensive to women. This trauma significantly impacted many women’s subconsciouses. The sense of dread became a wall seemingly built to enclose them and increase their insecurities and fears. However, for many, this new reality awakened their aspirations. This resulted in the Women's March in January 2017 in Washington DC, where dreamers rallied for change and opposition to the new regime. The protest was a manifestation of the expression of True Self in action. Dreams were represented through protest signs using a strong symbol of womanhood, the uterus, to comically represent the power of women. Wearing costumes and bearing protest signs, men and women of all races joined together, visually coloring the city using fantasy and humor in response to the actual severity of the situation. This surreal phenomenon re-established trust among the American people and released the tension from the protesters’ insecurities, encouraging belief that an idealistic change in the country was possible.
Surrealism is psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express — verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner — the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.
— André Breton
Dreams and surreality guide us to see better alternatives. In his 1516 work, “Utopia,” Sir Thomas More introduced the concept of utopia and the opposite concept, dystopia. These ideas were presented as unrealizable fictions in the form of socio-political satire. Utopia is presented as an imaginary place that possesses perfect qualities for its citizens and a complete absence of political problems. More presented utopia as a place of eternal peace and happiness—a place that was obviously unrealizable. In their book, Speculative Everything, Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby describe a vision of Utopia that is far more interesting as a concept used as a stimulus to keep idealism alive, not as something to try to make real—a reminder of the possibility of alternatives, as something to aim for rather than build.
In adopting this attitude, we may see great potential to put our trust in dreams and surreality as they have the capacity to recontextualize the undesirable parts of the actual world. Many artists are fascinated with visualizing a mental space through fantastical drawings. This approach invites us to view these visions as inspirational daydreams rather than as serious proposals. Paul Noble is a British artist whose work is full of rigorous detail, so much so that it might best be viewed through a microscope. In his large-scale work, Nobson Newtown (1998), he visualizes a vast phantasmagorical universe rendered in graphite pencil using a technique known as oblique projection. In his work, he presents a parody of various architectures; shopping malls, tourist spots, hospitals, factories, etc. but behind this humorous immersive drawing, is a caution—the drawings contain a total absence of human representation. Noble claims that “the truth is that wherever man goes, destruction and sadness aren’t too far behind.”
These examples address serious issues, through the lens of fantastical activity and imagery. They demonstrate how one’s personal creativity can address inaccessible and undesirable problems, and become clear significant manifestos regarding concerns in society. In this state, the appealing quality of fantasy can attract us more than a quality of realism. We can observe that the power of imagination or enter a state of being our True Self, which carries our internal exuberance and control forward and perhaps help us to conquer severe situations. As the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland observed: “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.” As Vincente Minnelli, an American Stage Director, famous for directing classic MGM musicals such as Meet Me in St. Louis, Gigi, and An American in Paris, said: “Surrealism is a way of life–” not just a cultural movement in the art history.
Living in reality, we follow the world. But living in surreality, the world follows us. We all know the world is what it is, it can’t physically be something else, but as Albert Einstein once said: “Logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will take you everywhere.” Perhaps, somewhere we never expect. If we want the world to exist in the way of our choosing, it is important to see the potentials of everything in our life. Once we give ourselves over to the realm of possibility, we are one step ahead of realism. Norman Bel Geddes, an American theatrical and industrial designer, mixed technologies with dreams, fantasy, and the irrational. In his work, he went beyond seeking functional solutions to problems, but used design to form dreams. In 1939 New York World’s fair, he designed an environment of large-scale models featuring a national network of expressways. It was viewed very much as an America of the near future: a realizable dream. Addressing a less optimistic reality, Herman Kahn, whose radical phrase was “thinking the unthinkable,” reconceptualized the practicalities of nuclear war by thinking through the aftermath in a rational way: how could America rebuild itself after an Armageddon? This speculative fantasy alerted people to the possibility of a nuclear war from the realm of the unimaginable to something much closer to everyday life.
Surreality is not the realm of the insane–whatever appears in our mind is eventually fantastic. In 1966, Yoko Ono, debuted her installation “Ceiling Painting” at London’s Indica Gallery where she and John Lennon first met. As with her instruction paintings, the “Ceiling Painting” was not a painting at all but an installation. It included a ladder with a magnifying glass suspended from the ceiling. In its original incarnation, the audience was to climb the ladder to see a word written in minuscule letters on a white canvas suspended from the ceiling above. The word was “YES.” Resolutely positive and elegantly simple, its humorous, intelligent twist gently transformed the audience into participants. The ladder and its accouterments are only the beginning of the artwork; its completion is in the “audience’s mind,” rolling over the meaning of that small yet powerful message; a word with an infinite definition. As John Lennon experienced this installation, the positivity of the word “Yes” incredibly conveyed Ono’s attitude and personality. Lennon was full of wonder and excitement to know her and ultimately made her his wife. In this work, Ono coupled a path to mental space with the action of climbing a ladder, metaphorically recreating the experience of a dream. If the word had been “No,” the power of negativity would have virtually eliminated all possible visions.
To perceive the value of dreams and surreality, we must understand the intimacy between our internal and external realities. In doing so, we can understand that the imagery that often occurs in our mind is never illogical. The irrational isn’t always impossible. It is important to listen to our True Self and let it speak in a way. In this world, with many unpredictable situations, we should appreciate that some people prefer to occupy the realm of surreality. By their examples, we will know that we have to do this for ourselves as well. Such an attitude can only enrich and broaden our minds. As Carl Jung, a Swiss psychoanalyst and follower of Sigmund Freud, once said “Our perception will become clear only when we can look into our soul.”
COSMOS
Daydream transports the dreamer
outside the immediate world to
a world that bears the mark of infinity.
– Gaston Bachelard
I obey the cosmos.
I often pleasantly lost in my thoughts.
I find myself sitting alone above the ground.
I joined the serene conversation
between the clouds and the sky.
I gently put the stars in my jeans pocket.
The beauty of relaxation that occurs in the world of nobody. The fleeting intersection of privacy and imagination that produces a free play and deep reflection. To be in this phenomenon, where the time is suspended, we must allow ourselves to feel the nonexistence.
FICTITIOUS TRANQUILLITY
Darkness holds the power of loneliness. Your hand feels warm but is cold inside, held by someone who should have reminded you that you wouldn’t be alone. Sadly, darkness is stronger than touch. There is no beacon. The half-mile walk back home unbelievably feels like ten miles. The surreal distance weakens your legs. You’re lost, not in direction, but in your heart. It's gone, altogether. Consequently, it's too late to devote your heart to yourself or to empower your soul. Your body has become the loneliest place, and you have no desire to resurrect it. The heartbeat is fictitious, but the black hole in the middle of your chest is real.
You live in the universe of hope and expectation for too long. You love to dream and ignite your imagination. You used to live in the hypnagogic world where everything seemed real, positively. But that's all it was, just seemed; it actually wasn't. When the other half of you tried to slow you down from extreme happiness, you refused. You were sinking in the joyfulness as deep as you couldn’t imagine being sad again. It was a trap. One day, failure stood right in front of you, struck you right at your heart, and ruined it. Pain is the only memory you remember. Unsurprisingly, you survived that incident, and it became a life lesson. You escaped that universe and are still running towards realism, where it is full of absolute existences. You found no parallel but curve. The truth is you shall have to handle all sentiments: from the highest happiness to the deepest sorrow and be strong enough to pull yourself back to the best again like a cycle.
To bring your heart back seems to be the most difficult part of your life duties. You may ask yourself if I want it back or not. Should you look for it, or will it come back by itself? You cannot deny that living without it is ridiculously serene but lifeless. Similarly, you are dead, but your brain is still working. You eat, and you sleep, but you are neither hungry nor sleepy. It is a life routine. Therefore, you are conceptually solitary. “Do you know what you are doing?” was a flat-toned interrogative sentence spoken by the one who held your hand during the way back home. You wanted to scream at the top of your lungs, but it was complete silence afterward. At that moment, it was brutal tranquility.
NO LINE BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY
“April 3rd. All of Cary Street is burnt, and Main Street is on fire; it is spreading rapidly. Almost every minute, Flory and I run out to the gate to see if the Yankees are coming.” This was written by Frances Calderon de la Barca Hunt in her diary during the American Civil War in 1865 in Richmond, Virginia. Nothing can describe the depth of her sadness at becoming an eyewitness to such a catastrophic event. She was just fourteen years old.
Many children encountered hardships and violence that forced them to grow up quickly amidst a nation at war itself. “I was ten years old today, I didn’t wish to have a birthday cake,” mourned Carrie Berry. “I just hoped to have peace in our land.” Her childhood had apparently slipped away. A few sentences from her included an overstepped experience that general children at this age would never be able to understand profoundly.
Did violence make children mentally stronger? The answer is worth thinking about. Some children were ready to fight, ready to help people, ready to grow up, and ready to face the truth, but some were not. “The world is built by thought,” said Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher. He claimed that children experience things as a living and create a form of life based on what they think and question. Nevertheless, children are still children, even though some of their minds grow faster than they should. Reality and fantasy are still too difficult to differentiate for them.
Dolls during the war were not mainly for entertainment but to distract children from the violent conflicts. A medium that allows children to learn how to love, to care, and to have feelings. According to Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, children may behave toward dolls as if they were real persons, set up scenarios, and entertain themselves. Unawarely, children used them to make sense of the world around them, using doll-play scenarios as a narrative device to piece real information through imaginative screens. The behavior of adults, the surrounding emotions, words, and images are integrated into doll-play, reflecting the adult world.
It reminded me of when I was in elementary school; I cannot remember the exact age, but what I always remember is I did not like my teachers so much. They hit me with rulers when I answered their questions wrong. But really, did this solve the problem? I was not brave enough to tell my parents what happened, but instead, I set up a classroom in my bedroom; all my dolls were students, and I hit them just like the way teachers hit me. I didn’t tell my parents the truth, never asked my teachers why, and by ignoring the unacceptable punishment, it didn’t mean I was strong, but fear and incomprehensibility controlled me to reflect my emotions and thoughts into the form of doll-play scenarios which made my parents think that I just had fun playing around.
'Josephine and her dolls,' a book which was written by Mrs. H.C. Cradock from 1916, was the first book for children to address war from a child’s perspective. The character Josephine was very innocent and raised during World War I. All friends she had were a bunch of dolls to play with. She named one of them Sunny Jim, who needed to go off to the war for protecting his family. She hid Jim in the closet as he left his family to serve, and she didn’t plan to bring him out of the closet. Then she started to cry along with the other dolls. Who knows? Jim may be her father who had gone for the military and never come back to see her face again.
Dolls are more than what adults think. They are innocent, belonging to children. Dolls are their friends, a part of their families. Dolls are the 'connection' between fantasy and reality. Dolls are something 'alive,' which gives children motivation, inspiration, and accessibility to understand the world.
VESSEL
“… Five… Four… Three… Two… One…, ready or not, here I come,” is a verbal signal for the popular game “Hide-and-Seek.” The rule is amazingly easy and simple; some go hide, one goes seek. This game becomes a universal children’s activity. I believe everybody has been through this exciting and enjoyable experience. Energy to imagine, energy to keep yourself quiet, energy to run around is limitless. An abandoned land full of soil, grasses, and artifacts, behind my house, was my favorite playground to hide and was never sought.
Beautiful artifacts were arranged nicely at the same distance, as if someone intentionally created a grid system for this abandoned land. None of them were damaged. They were pottery but in human scale. Reddish-brown artifacts with a small golden decoration automatically convinced me to get close to them. Huge vessels, massive containers for water, were very magical and magnificent to me when I was just six years old.
Each of them contained emptiness, a full space capable of holding the full body of a human. Tall and deep. No fear popped up but inquiries. My consciousness was back again when I was already in it. I was surrounded by a wall-like component, controlled by its space. Clay, the main material which invented this vessel, provided a comfortable temperature which kept me alive. All I heard was just my breathing and a reflection of my movements. It almost completely blocked the sound from the outside. A secure feeling had suddenly increased instead of frightened. It became a private space for playing and hiding.
Neighbor kids and I, we were not even friends, but we still played hide and seek together. For a six-year-old girl, when I was told to hide by strangers, that was serious. I undoubtedly hid in the vessel. Nobody found me… or nobody looked for me, were conflicting truths that I could not find the answer. What I knew was just the vessel held my whole body, shutting everything down like I stepped into another dimension. Immensity became limited, noise turned into silence, and the vessel became a shelter. It was probably the similar feeling for reptiles like snakes when they want to be safe by staying in a deep hole and probably the same feeling when a cow did not want to get killed, so it hid in a water vessel, according to the news from 2014.
Sally Ann profoundly described the art of pottery in a way that I could touch the powerful connection she has to it ––the way she looked at it, the way she touched it, holding it with two hands. The passion for clays; for their history, flexibility, and aesthetics remarkably influenced her to be able to communicate with them, and surprisingly, they communicate back to her. She let us experience the clay, telling us about its specialty that its temperature can adapt to our body’s. I held it, I felt the change. It was warm like my body, and I felt secure. I also grabbed a few vessels she made and covered my ear; it almost completely blocked the sound, just like the day before. Those phenomena recalled my memory when I spent time in the vessel ––the connection I had where it once held my body, not being held like today.
MONO POLITICS
And today,
they called it
democra cy;
the right
to vote,
each city.
But why
people walking
fearfully.
But why
people crying
mournfully.
But why
people need to
leave suddenly.
But why
unity is being
invisible.
Is this
the so-called
democra -zy ?
HUE IS UNREAL
Perceptual construction is the theory of perception in which the perceiver uses sensory information and other sources of information to construct a cognitive understanding of a stimulus. When we see something, we receive it, we form it within our mental understanding. We grow up and function through personal experience, trusting the image we create, never asking ourselves if the image we see each day is real or fake.
Beau Lotto, a professor of Neuroscience at University College London, claimed that color in the physical world doesn’t exist; it only exists in our brain. He insisted, 'There is such a thing as light. There is such a thing as energy, but there is no such thing as color.' This took me back to the age of sixteen when purple was my favorite color. I collected school objects such as pens, pencils, and notebooks, all in purple. Some of my friends argued that those objects were pink, not purple, while others argued that they were not pink but blue. It raised a thought about my belief in determining the color that has permanently imprinted in my brain through personal experience, which means color may be just a figment of my imagination.
Stuart Anstis, a perceptual psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, made a manifesto in 2003: 'Every time you see colors, you are not seeing the physical world; you are only seeing your brain’s capability for modeling the physical world. You are totally seeing a fiction that your brain constructs for you to enjoy.'
Anstis did an interesting experiment by immersing himself in a negative world, connecting a set of goggles to a video camera that reversed black and white and converted colors to their complements (yellow to blue and green to purple, for example), then putting them over his eyes for three days. He didn’t see the world in positive at all. After the experiment, he temporarily saw things differently. When his wife smiled, her teeth became black for several seconds. For objects, they were not easier to deal with than people; instead of seeing a yellow shirt, his brain function was messed up in the first few seconds, and his favorite breakfast like scrambled eggs became blue, for instance. The distortion interrupted his perceptual belief in color.
People with color blindness are unable to see color under normal light. EnChroma, a glasses company based in the United States, has invented glasses for color-blind people that enhance color perception by separating light into its primary spectral components before they reach the eye. Michael Clark, who had never realized the problem of color blindness, said, 'I thought the objects in my kitchen were all orange, but they are green. How did I think they were all orange?' He wasn’t wrong, and nobody was right. What he saw in his past life was possibly a figment of his imagination.
Mazviita Chirimuuta, a professor from the University of Pittsburgh, has described, 'The object itself has no color. Color is not an object of sight but a way of seeing objects,' in a publication called 'Outside Color.' So how can we make sure that the color we see today is what it should be in the first place? Dogs and cats don’t see many colors like humans; insects see colors that we aren’t able to see. So whose vision is right? Whose vision is real? I believe this question is difficult to answer since ultimately, living things will see whatever their brains think they should see.
HAIR
Black hair covers my head, falling on my shoulders. Sometimes, it covers my eyes; sometimes, my face. Fine threadlike strands stay with me and protect me like my personal guardian. My mother, who always imagines herself a professional barber, used my hair for her experiments every time she was stressed. “I want to cut something, not paper,” she said. “When I cut your hair, the cutting sound relieves my stress.”
I was in a school that was very strict about the hairstyle. All students must have a short bob haircut (shorter than earlobe length) until they get to high school; otherwise, there will be punishment. I had it for more than five years with a feeling of weakness. When the wind blew through my neck, touching my earlobe, I felt insecure. I felt like someone was trying to strangle me. My auditory perception was also very sensitive. A haircut that did not fully cover my ears and neck, to me, was a complete nightmare. “Mom, can I move to another school?” I asked my mother during her illogically measuring the length of my hair to cut. “I am scared.” “What are you scared of?” she asked me before confidently chopping off my hair. “I am scared of this bob.” That was probably the last time she cut my hair.
I moved to a school that concerns itself more with a student’s behavior than a haircut. My hair began to cover my earlobe and neck, providing me strength and power, and I was not scared anymore. I am not scared anymore because the length of my hair today performs like a protector, a defender, like my personal guardian.
Time moves quickly. I feel like it just happened a year ago. I worked in a place where I was not able to protect my privacy. Someone intentionally lifted my hair up and whispered in my ear; someone braided my hair without asking my permission. It automatically reminded me of a bob haircut feeling, the worst vulnerable emotion. My guardian was not powerful enough to protect me anymore. Hence, I upgraded my hair, made it red, the color of energy and blood, war, and danger, expecting people to give me space and privacy, or leave me alone. Yes, it did work, unexpectedly. My hair changed, thus its meaning changed. My guardian seemed more protective and powerful.
“I am scared,” my mother said. “What are you scared of?” I asked her during dinner after work, having spicy noodles in front of her. “I am scared of your hair and your spicy noodles.” I almost laughed before everything turned silent. I looked at her face, and she meant it. A three-square-feet dining table became a very long distance between two people. My super guardian perfectly protected me from the intruders, but at the same time, it pushed my lovers away.
I turned my hair black, back to reality. I lost my super guardian, but that wasn’t the point anymore. My hair still covered my earlobe and neck; I needed to retain its strength and power somehow. “Can you not touch my hair?” I told intruders. “Make it red, and I won’t touch it,” they replied and walked away. And that was probably the last time they touched my hair.
ME AND THE OBJECT
“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older,” said by Tom Stoppard. Childhood offers various choices for learning and living. It is not wrong for someone to want to leave their past behind and not mention it. It's understandable that our memories have both positive and negative aspects. We are human, so we do have feelings which affect our perception and attitude. But I never want to run away from my childhood. In fact, it has an ability to keep me safe and happy.
I never want to age, either physically or mentally. It is not because I am afraid that wrinkles will make me less beautiful, but they will reduce my chances to enjoy life and have fun. I always understand how my grandmother felt before she left the earth to heaven. She was so energetic, strong, and loved beers. Unfortunately, people treated her as if she were an old lady who needed a wheelchair and I deeply knew that her childhood enjoyment was her best source of motivation. “I was in the 360-degree ride in the theme park; my protective belt had come off. I thought it was the end of my life. I closed my eyes, and my entire childhood flashed up, my parents were there everywhere. It made me ready to die happily,” said by Harun Sharma who unbelievably survived from the theme park accident in Bangalore, India in 2013.
Social engagement was something that I did not understand when I was a kid. The concept of having fun with people who I barely knew was a ridiculousness. One time, during my lunch break at school, I joined the other kids for playing jump rope, and I ended up being the one who held the rope for 30 minutes and never had a chance to jump. I was not angry or sad, but more uncomfortable. For this reason, I always wanted to leave school and go home to play with my toys –– they were the only things that I can fully engage and had fun with.
“Objects bring together thought and feeling,” said by Igor Kopytoff. Childhood objects truly taught me how to “care” about my feelings. I was bullied in the elementary school, and I felt vulnerable. I was too weak to fight back. I was scared of the consequences. Playing with toys seemed like the only thing that strengthened me against those terrible feelings. Once I engaged with them, a protective frame automatically surrounded my body, I felt secure and I “trust” them. They even saved me from bullying. I brought the coolest toys to the school, and those bad kids started to be nice to me.
If I tell you something, would you believe me? Most of my childhood objects and memories are still in my bedroom – Polar Bear sculpture, Polly Pockets, Piggy Bank, Fake Barbies, Plastic Robots, and Masks. My childhood drawings and paintings were neatly kept under the bed. Swing and slider are still in the backyard. “One day you will come back for them,” my mother said it before I moved to a college dormitory for five years. If my mother was a fortune teller, I wouldn’t be so surprised. But she was right. I came back for them whenever I felt vulnerable.
I grew up among childhood objects and spaces. They have been my true best friends. My heart sank when I realized it was time to grow up. Social engagement became a crucial factor in developing a girl like me into a mature woman. I started to find political and scientific solutions to solve problems instead of hugging/playing those toys. But life is hard, and it gets even harder as we grow older, and adult’s world is sometimes too scary to accept it. Finding people whom I can truly trust is even impossible. If there was a time machine, I would use it to go back to my childhood, to be too innocent to be aware of complicating adulthood situations, but only of what else I could play again.
Even though time machine does not exist and I could not physically remain a child, but my mentality does; my childhood memories are still recalled in my mind, and I am truly happy. I love how they affect my emotions and feelings. I love the magic of childhood that strengthens me from weakness. I love how they will never be placed by something else.
PLAYGROUND
my voice was innocent.
my imagination was, too.
i remembered it did hurt.
when i ran and fell down.
i cried looked at my knee.
i saw a wound and that’s my first scar.
i ran around, dirty barefoot.
i didn’t know, i had to wear shoes.
i remembered it wasn’t new.
the day i woke up next to you.
i observed over your face.
i was looking at your hands.
i saw my love, i saw my mom.
but also lines, next to your eyes.
i was so curious until i realized
you weren’t innocent, your skin wasn’t, too.
today, i woke up.
the day has arrived.
the day i fell down
it didn’t hurt, anymore.
the day i ran around,
it wasn’t barefoot, anymore.
the day i saw lines
i saw wrinkles, next to my eyes.
the day when time
is faster than my mind.
i wish i could play
and stay in my childhood.
never come out to see the world.
never come out to seek the reality.
just want to laugh, just want to climb the tree
just want to eat the berries, and come back home.
if i could ask for a space,
i would ask for a playground.
so i could run around, without shoes.
so i could fall down, like an innocent bruise.