ADULTING
You Are Scattered Everywhere
Art, life and everything in between
I was strolling into a place that felt like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The sky was dark and melancholic. And if hope is an object, it would be the bright and tall yellow lamps lining the center of the street. The scene simultaneously felt like a funeral and a celebration of life. Looking back, I never thought I could feel despair and hope in one breath.
Art
Why do we create art?
As a cynic, I often thought that art was a product of humanity’s pride.
After all, what’s the purpose of towering skyscrapers and elaborate museums other than to shove our existence to Earth’s face?
Isn’t art humanity’s universal way of screaming into the cold and indifferent void that we are here?
That night, I began to question my cynical views on art. What if art isn’t just about the big gestures like legacy, eternity, and fame?
At its core, maybe art is simply feelings turned into objects. Maybe, they’re moments frozen in time. Maybe, they’re bits and pieces of ourselves suspended in colors, sound, and texture. And maybe, they aren’t meant to last. They’re just there to make us feel something — to make us feel alive.
Life
I never know Van Gogh well enough. In the articles and documentaries that I’ve encountered, he was often branded as the epitome of the starving artist or that of a mad genius.
Maybe, I’m completely wrong about this. For me, he was just like any of us — an ordinary person trying to breathe meaning and form into an otherwise abstract existence.
Staring at the photos of his painting online, I don’t think he painted it to leave a legacy. I don’t think he even intended it to be the masterpiece it is today. I think he simply painted who he was and what he felt in those moments — his feelings suspended into valleys and villages under a sky in spiraling blues and yellows.
Whether it will last or not didn’t matter.
Everything
Like Van Gogh, our feelings, too are suspended somewhere else — our frustration tethered into a long Facebook rant, our mood worn through our clothes, our dreams graffitied into journals, walls, and 3 am conversations.
In essence, we are all walking and breathing galleries leaving pieces of ourselves, that is to say — leaving art in every place and object we touch.
Art is in how you fix your bed and style your morning hair. It’s how you hold and sip your coffee. It’s how you smile and dance like crazy when no one is around.
Art is in the way you curate your playlists. It’s in the highlighted text of your favorite novel. It’s in the way you listen and talk. It’s in your voice. It’s in the way that you breathe. It’s everywhere.
In essence, you are your ruffled bedsheets. You are the lyrics and the melody in every song in your playlist. You are the character in your favorite novel. You are the scratches and the lines in your windowpane. You are your messy handwriting and tear-stained pages.
You are scattered everywhere.
So, I guess, it is true that we are all broken. We will never be whole because bits and pieces of us are scattered in time and space.
In the same vein, it also meant that we’re alive for how can we breathe feelings and moments through colors and sounds if we aren’t?
P. S. I would like to thank Supritha Kamalanathan for this very short and wonderful poem. I hope I get to read more of your poetry.
My mind and me,
forever intertwined —
in an intimate dance of smiles
and reflection.
I’m sure this line will live rent-free in my head for a long time. Here’s the full article.
