Hoodies Need Mirrors

You’ve probably seen huge one-way mirrors on the walls of interrogation rooms in movies. Wouldn’t it be cool if hoodies had one-way mirrors?

Hoodies are often associated with criminal activity, especially in movies. It’s funny how it’s also associated with the confident/arrogant boxer/rapper personality. In this context, it’s function of hiding the face of the person wearing it is in direct contrast with the function of the setting the person is in, be it a stage or a boxing ring. That’s why it’s cool. The statement is strong: you don’t even need to see my face because I’m everywhere. I don’t need to care about making my face visible. I have transcended the human need to be seen. And so on.

Coming back to mirrors on hoodies, there’s a reason why I think a hoodie with a one-way mirror where the face is supposed to be would be a strong artistic statement. You’re threatened by things you don’t know, not by things you know. That’s why a person in a hoodie, in certain situations, registers as a threat. If someone is wearing a hoodie with a one-way mirror, they are able to see others while remaining hidden and others won’t find them scary because they see themselves in the mirror.

You’re not scared of yourself. You know yourself.

Obviously, this is not supposed to have any function in the real world. It’s a thought, an insignificant random thought of an unapologetic eccentric who has little idea of what constitutes good art. L’art pour l’art, I say.

I just thought it would be a cool statement to make. Maybe I’ll make a hoodie with a one-way mirror one day. It seems possible. For it to work, one side has to be really dark (inside the hoodie) and the other side has to be well-lit (outside the hoodie). I guess I’ll still have to figure out how to make it breathable lol. Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up being a wannabe EDM artist. If Marshmello and Deadmau5 pulled off those really weird helmets, I might be able to pull this off.

Never Cliché

Dear …………………………,

I saw a great movie today. A beautiful one.

The sun’s almost down here. The birds are all returning to their modest abodes. If every day was a movie, then this would be a very cliché ending. But yet this is beautiful. Every day is filled with ephemeral clichés that we seem to enjoy with a satisfaction that makes no sense at all. Stefan, haven’t you gotten tired of seeing the sunset, the flying birds, and the full moon? You’ve been loitering on this earth for 18 years. But no, you still enjoy them. They still make sense to you.

The movie I saw today ended with a cliché. And yes, I would have liked it to surprise me, but it didn’t. But yet, it was beautiful, full of meaning. Today, films are trying to survive. Everything is becoming cliché. Around a lakh movies are made every year. New clichés are made every day. Playwrights and directors are rocking their brains left and right to find something new.

Why do I never stop loving a good sunrise? Why do I never get bored with nature?

Is it the acceptance of my unawareness of many of the delicate details I have yet to see? Maybe.

I have a feeling that a cliché becomes annoying only when you are aware of a better possibility. If this is indeed true, then it is the limitations of my imagination that makes me fall in love over and over again with nature, love, beauty and another human being.

And that, I find extremely beautiful. In a world that keeps changing in time, I find it comforting to think that my sheer oblivion to an alternative for many things and my sheer inability to form one, makes what is there everlasting and beautiful.

God, you have indeed painted your glory in the skies and in the most minute vestiges of nature. I can’t find anything to replace it.

Yours,

Stefan

 

 

 

Explosion

‘Every work of art is an explosion of a lifetime of creative thoughts that passes through the mind of an artist’ – Stefan 🙂

For many years I’ve felt that our fascination for many things is very much connected to our inability to explain our object of fascination. It is not the factual information we know that raises our fascination but what we don’t know.

Every song, every book, every blog post, every word you say is influenced by the information you have collected from your birth to that moment in your life. Every creation is a result of millions of thoughts of a unique person and thus, a unique way of thinking.

When you look at the Mona Lisa, you see the result of the millions of thoughts that passed through the mind of the great Leonardo Da Vinci in the many years he spent before that canvas. And you immediately question why he painted it. You look for an answer in the canvas before you. An answer for a question that is explained completely only by the millions of thoughts that passed through the complicated mind of the famous painter.

The ‘what’ question is not the signature of human fascination. It is merely a bridge to the first question that sparks research – the ‘why’

When you see art, it is like standing in the middle of an explosion of millions of creative thoughts that could have passed through the mind of an artist. An explosion sparked by a question of ‘why’ it’s there, why the artist made it the way it is. You only see a few fragments during the explosion, parts of the painting or the song that clicks with you. Different people see different fragments of the creativity of the artist and we all form our own opinions and conclusions.

We are all great artists in the sense that we all feel a very similar level of emotion when we are creating something new. The difference lies in how well we are able to take the person witnessing our work of art, to the level of emotion we were at, when we were creating the art. There is the art that talks of great complex things, philosophy and ideology, and then there is the art that talks of simple things, everyday things that we all know of. But both find place in the museum.

It’s not just about what you speak but how you convey it.

Songs, poems, paintings and novels are all explosions of somebody’s creative thoughts that evolved through a lifetime of thinking. Many strings of thought, forced into a small canvas or a 3 minute song. Kinda like taking all the water on the earth and filling it into a balloon

This is why successful people are often people who’ve been denied and rejected many times. The time they spend, sticking to what they do, one day, becomes really explosive. Their strings of thought and experience become so long, they cannot be forced into a few words or a few strokes of paint. But when they do, they are explosive. You can’t figure it all out. There’s no cliché when you read a really explosive story. You just can’t predict what happens next. You have no idea of what’s going on!

Why?

Because there is a lot of input that went into it. A lot of detail, detail that makes it more real to you.

What is your passion? What do you have in abundance? What is that hidden talent?

Bring it on! Put everything you know out there. Use every ounce of resource you have. And then force it into as small a package as you can. Make it into a blog post, a painting, a song. Make it explosive.

Why did Da Vinci spend 12 years of his life before the Mona Lisa?

He was bringing in all he knew, he was trying to put in all those millions of creative thoughts and ideas into that one canvas that would change history. He was creating something explosive. He was creating a ‘masterpiece’!

It’s all about an endless space of remarkable potential, a blank space. It’s all about filling it with who you are and what you know.

Every work of art is an explosion. Some are small and some are big, but behind every work of art, there is a very similar excitement. It’s all about bringing that out. It takes time and in time, that explosion of words and that explosion of colour, grows into something magnificent, something that changes history.

Let’s all work on our small explosions. Let’s stick to it and make it something wonderful!

God bless!

What do you think about ‘explosion’ ?

Comment. Share. Be a part of the movement! 🙂

Whole lotta love!

‘All the world’s a stage’

Shakespeare?

Yep!

Life is a play, and we all have our exits and entrances.

A few days ago, I came across this absolutely beautiful story about a rattrap peddler by Selma Lagerlof. The message that easily came out from the story was how love and kindness can change hearts.

Can it?

We live in a world that is constantly questioning the power of the abstract forces that drive us. This inspired me to think about them in a new way.

So today, I decided to write about how we are all lovable in a very strange way.

Have you ever found yourself falling in love with the star character in a movie?

We can’t help it. All throughout the movie, we are there in front of that rectangular screen( I don’t know why all electronic screens come in rectangles these days. Aesthetics? Definitely something to think about but let’s get back to the topic), we sit there with our popcorn, rooting for them, justifying their mistakes and encouraging them on with your silent and undivided attention.

You see, one of the funniest facts about life is that there are more than 7 billion people on this planet right now and still we believe that our life is the most important of them all.

Why?

Every book and every movie has a main character and the whole world moves around him or her, just like in real life. We move on in this world everyday, creating another part of this really long movie, where we remain the main character and the whole world flips, jumps and rides around us. This is one of the greatest reasons why we love movies. A few minutes into a movie, you become the person on the screen, you recognise that element and you get lost in a new world, where anything could happen. You get to be somebody else for a while. No consequences. Just like a dream.

You see and travel with the person throughout the movie. You see the private and public side of the person’s life. You see the silent tears and the loud laughter. You see their secret life. You see how they think and so you know why he/she made that particular decision. This is why a movie can be influential. Even if you don’t like the character at the start , you are stuck with them till the end, that is, if you still choose to give the movie a chance. And most of the time, in the end, you end up just loving the character.

This made me wonder about the people in our life.

Are we one of those guys who pause movies midway and walk away because the character is not interesting?

Or are we the guys who choose to give it a chance anyway?

The point is, when we make quick conclusions, when we shut people out of our lives because we believe they are ‘unlovable’, we are actually pausing the movie and walking away.

There are no ‘unlovable’ people in this world. There’s a piece of us in the people around us. It helps us to bond, trust and understand each other.

But unless we show the patience to try and find that missing piece, this world will remain the same. We need a whole lotta love in this world. Our jail cells are filling up so fast, it’s hard to even imagine the rate. We need to start fighting with our hearts.

Look around you. There are lots of people who show absolutely unconditional love to people who don’t even deserve it. There is only one thing that can bring back that touch of emotion a man has lost. Love, unconditional, undeserving, pure love. The kind of love that God shows us everyday. We call him names, we put all the things that go wrong in this world on him when he made us creatures with free will. But still he chooses to love.

Won’t you try to love someone today. He/she may not deserve it. But don’t pause the movie yet, the DVD still has miles to run. In time you’ll understand why.

Won’t you love?

 

 

 

The Third Person Watching.

Love movies?

Me too!!!

Today, I am going to give you movie lovers, something to think about.

Have you ever seen one of those movies where there has a been a misunderstanding and a relationship is broken because one of them made a mistake?

Remember how you kept hoping for them to come back together. Remember how you thought the person who messed it up deserved another chance? How you kept telling the other person to forgive.

Deja vu. Right?

Do you know why?

Because you were able to see that person in places and circumstances that the other characters in the movie( suppose they were real) were not able to. This made you much more sympathetic to that character. Much more sympathetic than the other characters in the movie. You had a better picture of what it would be like to be in their shoes.

So what?

Well, like Shakespeare did, let us imagine our life to be a movie, or a play. We get mad at many people. We all go through situations where we misunderstand people.

Are we going to think about what that third person would say? That person who knows the whole movie and every step along the way?

According to me that would be God.

I am a Christian and sometimes when I get angry at people I try to ask myself the question, “What would Jesus say?”.

We don’t know what it’s like to be in their shoes. Maybe we would look at them in a different way if we knew each and every part of the movie. It may not always be the reasonable thing to do. But one thing is true. If we would all ask ourselves that question, we may start a revolution of forgiveness and love.

We live in a world that is based on equations. A world where every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. It always balances. But change occurs when we get a different result. When you forgive and accept somebody who has wronged you, an imbalance is created for the better. Something that makes them think and helps them to forgive somebody else.

So next time you have a chance, think of that third person.

And advertising your view helps to make a difference. When you do something remarkable for somebody you think doesn’t deserve it and others ask you,

” What are you doing, bro?” 

Tell them, “I’m thinking about the third person!!!!”