I come to this eve of the new year holding two images, two art experiences juxtaposed. One is a review of the past. The other a resolution. Together they resonate.
The first, the review of things past that influence things to come, is Peter Jackson’s World War I documentary film, And They Shall Not Grow Old. It is a miracle of film making (stay to see the segment about how it was made that rolls after the credits. You will shake your head with wonderment). It takes you into the trenches and horrors of war. We left the theatre both wowed by the film-making and shocked by the utter senselessness of war. Wowed by the human capacity to innovate and despairing at our capacity to willingly destroy ourselves for imagined gains. Both are technical achievements.
The morning after seeing the film I opened Brain Pickings and, given the film, I was smacked by a photograph of Earth taken from The Voyager spacecraft in the mid 1990’s. The Pale Blue Dot. It brought instant perspective to war – and everything else we imagine to be so important. Within the vast expanse of space, “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” I had to look twice to see the speck that is Earth. Our imagined importance is out of perspective with the realities of our circumstance. The fragility (the miracle) of our existence is generally lost in our daily myopia.
Two images. Juxtaposed.
read Kerri’s blog post on THE NEW YEAR
Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, The Direction of Intention, Uncategorized | Tagged: Brain Pickings, Carl Sagan, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, film making, human capacity, imagination, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, myopia, New Years Eve, Peter Jackson, studio melange, technical achievement, The Pale Blue Dot, They Shall Not Grow Old, Voyager, war | Leave a comment »
It is such a simple thing and yet so hard to do – to let go of what we think is right, allowing a new perspective of something that we think we understand. The word I’ve learned to pay attention to is “think.” The skill of an artist is to see beyond what they “think.” The gift of the artist is to help others see beyond what they think. To pop open new perspectives and make space for new possibilities.
The Direction of Intention 