Supermodel

I ate it all- plastic, diamonds and sugar coated arsenic.

Mentally clutched, doubled over in acidic defeat, surrounded by dulled and darkened hues and an array of what were once destined to be bold and envious colors: I am caught. I have been seized by my work, ensnared by my craft. The cameras flash without cessation- no mercy, no consideration, and no remorse. The moment must be captured: such a cultural icon, such a representation of all we are and all we are told to be, must be in her moment of weakness. Blinded in shame, throwing up a poem about consumption that she, in her haste and senseless frenzy, had consumed; the supermodel is something to behold.

Snap! goes the moment; a photograph is time travel.

I am stopped dead in my tracks, but for beauty I will gladly feed my life.

And amidst the double handed efforts of the cameras and flashing, a single comforter reaches out to help me. Unknowingly, I almost reach out to be helped; I crave a familiar face, even if I haven’t seen it before. I need a face that understands, a face that forgives me. I almost reach out towards that face when I realize that there are no faces and I am entirely alone in the face of a huge enemy. The mints were not for the good of me, but rather for the good of the story brimming on the surface. The mints are to freshen me up and stand me upright so I can speak the words I know they want to hear- and then I will be done and they won’t care anymore. None of them. Not even the ones who handed me the mints.

                                                                                                                                                           

Supermodel is a multilayered, culturally savvy and artfully crafted piece by Dutch artist Nick van Hofwegen, with the original concept and contained poem by Los Angeles based musician Mark Foster. Each person is struck in a distinct and particular way upon hearing the term “supermodel”, and this piece serves as the sharp perfect counterbalance to those impressions.

We live in a supermodel culture. Everyone is constantly pining for their miniature bouts of fame and recognition, and self-worth seems increasingly measured by how many Facebook  likes and Twitter retweets are received. Though convenient, instantaneously gratifying, and tempting as can be, such self-indulgent habits (excessive social media, a society that pushes the importance of fame/status, and “selfies”) are thin and misleading, ultimately causing far more harm than good.

Everyone wants to be a supermodel. Rather, everyone thinks they want to be a supermodel. Recognition, good looks, money- these are the foundations of success as pushed on by our western world.  However, these don’t lead to any long-term sense of happiness of fulfillment. Often enough, they tend to produce the opposite: an endless chain of consumption, dissatisfaction, and angst.

         The Mermaid's Betrayal  

          The mermaid had a beautiful life, full of richness and effortless delight. She had a place, she had a home; she had a life.

          But there was something she wanted, and it wasn’t a part of that life. It couldn’t be a part of that life, for it was above the surface, while the very foundation of her life was that it existed below it.  

          In order to get what she wanted- no, what she needed- the mermaid had to break through the surface and get to the other side. It was necessary, the trade of all trades. Barely anything to consider. It was not only the obvious choice, but rather the only one to make.

          I clearly remember the night I first stumbled across The Mermaid’s Homesickness. For months, I had been torturing myself with thoughts of the various lives I could lead after graduation. I was, with equal measure and matched enthusiasm, leaning towards several distinctly differing paths. Some days, I would dream of travelling Europe. Others, I was quite determined to quit school and move anywhere in California. I contemplated driving trucks to see the country, and (though, I’ll admit, very briefly) considered joining the army to see the world. The only strained constant amidst all my planning was this: I was to lead a new and exciting life as a new and exciting person. I was to uproot, reconsider, and get the hell out of here.

          Yes, gone would be the days of coming home to messes I didn’t make and the buzzing dependence of a family unit. I would no longer concern myself with such trivial things as turning in assignments and laboring over applications. These days would be over for good.

          I was to uproot, reconsider, and get the hell out of here. In some ways, I guess that’s still the plan. However, something’s not quite right. The ready-to-go, charged abandon I once had has been diminished. It’s been replaced by something more tender, something far gentler and more nostalgic.  And, as I stare at The Mermaid’s Homesickness at 3:32 in the morning, the rest of the house asleep, it hits me: once I venture into this new life, I’ll forever lose the one I have now.

          The life I have now will pass the moment I depart from it. It won’t be here when I inevitably come back for a visit, longingly and with pride. I’ll come back for comfort, and it won’t be here. I’ll come back to say, “Look! Look at all I’ve done! Everything is so much better now.” But to whom will I boast? I will boast to a concept, a thing that once existed and never will again.

          Long before I’m dead, I will lose this life.  It’s passing now. And I don’t know what frightens me more: that I’m not going to try to save it, or that I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

          The mermaid and I are not the same. I am aware- she was not. She didn’t understand the ramifications of her decisions; I do. She didn’t get that you can’t reclaim what you forfeit in trivial pursuit; I do. I know better, and yet I push on. The mermaid was ignorant and filled with hope. I am knowledgeable and filled with pride.

          As the mermaid stares into the space she once knew as home, she hardly feels the physical pain. She is far too engulfed in the throbbing waves of self-betrayal to spend much time focused on any one particular thing. She has betrayed herself by abandoning herself, by forgetting herself amidst her pursuits. She has caused irreversible damage, and she can’t go back.

          She didn’t know any better.




Wang, Lijia. The Mermaid's Homesickness. 2013. Oil Canvas. DeviantArt, Online.

Us Naked Fools

What we cannot see we deny; what we cannot touch must exist.

The garden is in full bloom for us all as, self-indulgent and willing; we choose to ignore our inconvenient fates. We hold no time for dread, no room for regret. To dread or to regret would be to live in a time that isn’t now and therefore in a time that does not exist. This is both impossible and undesired. And so, in haste and retaliation, we drown ourselves in excess: every pleasure known to man must be consumed until our bellies protrude with fleeting satisfaction and our minds are occupied with a rush that grows duller and duller with each offense. Such temporary content will not hold us over for long, nor would we expect it to. We live to consume again and again, for pleasure can only be fully pleasing if we believe it to be never ending. This pleasure is ours for the taking, and its consequences cannot harm us now, only then.

Only then, and how dark our then shall be. By the time then finally arrives, all that was once good will have been abused. We will have taken the very things that lent us light and squandered them amidst our reckless consumption and pleasurable deception. Relentless, unforgiving shadows will take their place, following us as death follows the old and sick. When then decides to come, all pleasure will turn to anguish, all hedonistic joys to a single primal fear. Our pleasure-seeking bodies will tremble with deterioration as we watch those we once danced with decay, those we indulged with wither, and those we made love to collapse. The earth will abandon us as we abandoned ourselves.

And so we dance. We relish in such things, for it is through this very abandonment that we are free. Furthermore, it is through our self-abandonment that we all (secretly and with grave hesitation) hope to find ourselves again. Twisted and contorted, foolish and insane, we roll through pleasure after meaningless pleasure in the hope that we’ll someday be brought back to who we were, to who we desperately want to believe we still are.

But we all know the truth. There is no reverse, no possible way to return to simpler times. Upon tasting sin, it was etched into all of our senses; the only way to attain any form of satisfaction is to sin more deeply than we did before. We hardly remember what once kept us intact. In fact, we cannot be entirely sure there is anything to return to.  All we know is that, if any true goodness remains, we are hopelessly undeserving. Us naked fools; in splendor and deafening angst, we defy our Creator in order to define ourselves, devastatingly unaware that in doing so we unravel all that we could have been. Us naked fools and our terrible lives with which we are so in love.

What we cannot see we deny; what we cannot touch must not exist.

We forget the past’s grand vision, while we’ve yet to feel what is to come. 

The Garden of Earthly Delights. 1503. Museo Del Prado, Madrid. By Hieronymus Bosch.