The Light!

As a musician, it is nearly a daily run-in where one must question the metaphorical implications of exactly what your music represents, symbolizes, portrays, and otherwise "says." When considering such artistry, a person has an arsenal of words they use to attempt at grasping and maintaining the feeling and concepts they feel by using words. Even though it has been done time and again, it always surprises me at how many ways one word may be taken and defined.

Take "light" for example. There are the typical definitions for it, a particle/wave that is within the visible spectrum of energy wavelengths; a weight that is small or easily lifted by an individual; or a less fattening butter alternative. There is also the metaphorical definitions behind this word (just to name a few) there is its representation with intelligence(oh, hell, pick a religion), warmth (bleak cold winter night, nice warm fire), comfort (a light in a dark place, we seek it out), energy (in the "get up and go" sense). Conversely, it can also represent unwillingness (don't head towards the light unless your really sure...), fear (just look at Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Gandalf the white blinds and stops the group dead), slavery (just ask the Jewish folk under Rah), sickness (his skin was quite light and ashen...), and probably thousands of more examples.

What surprises me even further is what these words can mean to an individual in very personal ways. I feel that we construct these meanings usually without knowing, that we connect certain words to certain objects, feelings, times, thoughts.... and with those sleeping ideas, I feel they seep out into our dreaming states. As odd as this may sound, whenever I dream of myself dieing, in whatever situation it happened, I, in real life, usually have a new beginning or a rebirth of what was dieing. So death to me has a profound definition of rebirth, or life, to me. No idea where that came from, just that it's there.

Our cat just recently had a lot of doctoring, with a checkup for earmites, and again a week later to have three broken teeth extracted. She has no way of telling us what is wrong with her, and even her physical language is alien to me, admittedly I think saying "Hey idiot, I have ear parasites" is difficult with anything less than sign language in the physical department, and cats don't show pain if they can help it, so knowing something is wrong is rather difficult. Anyways, Minnie despises her carrier, as well as other animals in general. She does not understand language as we do (whether or not she gets the gist of what I am saying, or more rather how, is still a mystery) so to her, the abstract objects hold a different meaning from how we typically view it. So, if kitties could describe their world through abstract fashion (what we say is "art"), what would the world look like through her eyes? Would it be any more bizzarre, than say, Picaso's view on the world? Would she be so bold and abstract? Or would she rather take the literal picture, and just use a title, or her own personal, well known, history to help define the piece?

So a cat cannot do art, in any way we conceive, however people can, and how wonderous would the world become if everyone tried their hand at someone defining their world through an art? I don't know the answer, but I feel much of the corporate shackles we allow ourselves to be chained to would become loosened, because that is the power of the abstract-to help define ourselves, and thus become stronger and more real. How's that for a real backwards definition?