The Elements of Being

I sit here, watching the world around me, and, even as I watch it, I watch myself - I see myself come together in thousands, millions, billions of pieces, in all colors, all layered over one another in a slow, weary construction. I am the artist. I am creating myself, even as my brain is creating the world around me in my thoughts. Dot by dot, point by point, gradually you can begin to see the shape of my face. You can watch the meshing of lights and darks and see how no single area is devoid of either of them - there are lights and darks, good and evil, in every part. This makes for a complete and flowing piece, a whole unified by all different colors in various distributions throughout the entirety, and not just in one, unbalanced spot. And you can clearly see - there is no grey. Only the certain colors of each in different levels. There is no uncertainty there.

And yet, I am incomplete. Though my skin is done, and my face quite brilliant, the clothes I wear are nonexistant. There is no background, no outside world, to place me in. And who am I, who can I be, without somewhere to be? Herein lies my problem - for though I know exactly who I am, this knowledge is insignificant without somewhere to use it. How can I be a writer without someplace to put my writing? How can I be an artist, without a gallery for my art? Some argue that who you are in inherent inside you, and that that being is all you need to claim yourself - but in truth, though this may be true, it leaves a large, gaping hole in the big picture of things; it leaves a cloying empty space that one will forever be longing to fill, regardless of who you are inside. Without an outside, there is nothing to ground you. And you float off into nothingness, just you and Who You Are, together and alone, for the rest of eternity.

Is that really what is wanted?

To be something isn't enough. You have to be something, somewhere. You have to insert yourself into the plane of reality and cause the ripples that you were meant to cause. You have to feel the waves that you make bounce off and return to you. Without this, what is the point in being? Where is the meaning in it? Meaning stems from the outer world - you gather your meanings by observing the strangers around you. A meaning without this outer influence is impossible to imagine.

Any good artist knows: in order to make a good piece, there must be substance - there must be character, value, meaning - but there must also be a place to this meaning. There must be background. And there must be some link between background and foreground, some significance in placing the character there, rather than somewhere else. Background and foreground, light and dark, substance and absence - all together, to make a masterpiece.

I know Who I Am. Now - where shall I place it?