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Painting Pessimism, a Dichotomy

Imagine.

The canvas is enormous, bigger than you or I.
The brushes are many,
Though the hues are only five: three primaries and two shades.
I am the painter of my canvas.

Older canvases, like the art of painting, have no rules.
But this canvas is new.
Its one rule: the first hues to appear must be dark, in stark contrast to its blank state.
For, this canvas is dichotomous.

When it is blank it is directionless; emptiness is not the same as peace.
It can be manipulated.
And so, as a checkerboard craves to be played, I lift the brush to make my move.
It is time to transform this canvas.

Swirls of black and blue engulf the emptiness.
It is chaos. Isn’t it always at the start?
I leave some spaces for touches of bright colours, for this is my canvas.
Who made that rule anyway?

Maybe the rule doesn’t apply to me if I don’t accept it.
After all, this is a dichotomy.
Thus, the moment darkness appears, there must also be light… right?
This is my world.

I look down at my hands. The brush is gone.
When did this happen?
The canvas grows ever larger but this time the swirls spread across it on their own,
With fewer spaces for the light.

I step back as it grows, sending the walls crashing down.
I observe the world around me.
There exists day and night, depending on where you look. Light and dark. Colours.
And yet my canvas remains dark.

It seems there really is only one rule: that control is an illusion.
I want my brush back.
I start to throw all the colours of the palette atop the dark swirls - my only choice is to add to it now.
Like the world, it becomes a cacophony of both suffering and bliss.

The line between the canvas edge and the rest of the world is blurred. The dark is growing.
Dichotomy is here too.
People need to be a part of something, to believe in something, to trust someone.
But, who and what do we trust?

Trust and faith rely on what we have been a part of.
The irony of our existence.
Here’s another: in a world where every day someone says ‘Oh my God’ or ‘God damn it,’
I ask, where is God?

If there is no control, perhaps there is no freedom or self-determination.
Today, pessimism has won.
In the eye of the storm, the only thing I can do is control my position: left, right, forward or back.
I step forward.

For, if there exists pessimism, there must also be optimism.
There must be hope.
My palette has five hues, but with some skill I can turn five into the possibility of infinity.
We can choose to create possibilities.

Imagine.

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