A Balancing Act.
Working on poetry, I tried to think of repeating patterns. This made me think of Paul Simons’ lyrics to Patterns. He stated our lives were full of patterns we had little control over.
Having control, a characteristic that makes us feel more comfortable. Having control of one’s words or medium is a delicate balance to play with.
Words written can come across different than words spoken. Sometimes we need reference points. A facial expression. Historical reference. Compiled words from distant eras or woven with symbolism can have different meanings than what one might be presently familiar with.
Mediums used singularly may not appear as familiar when layered with another. Practicing with these unknown qualities helps us to have a better understanding of what the end result can be. Balance. Familiarity. Understanding. These are all things we struggle with, long for, and must keep searching for.
Repeating Patterns
I keep picking up my markers to see what I can do with them. Today I used them to work on some sketch ideas involving repeated patterns. In this play time I came up with more ideas. I may not be improving my marker usage and understanding of their capabilities, but the experience helped me move forward with scene layout planning for something I’m working on.
Even in not learning more about the marker’s capabilities, I learned more about how to think in terms of additional design elements in a scene.
However, if I keep repeating the pattern of how I use the markers I’ll never learn how to use them more efficiently or creatively. The same goes for other patterns we repeat in life. There was a good report in last September’s National Geographic magazine about how we repeated the same patterns and thus the same mistakes of how we addressed a viral outbreak. They shared charts of how some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic. You’d think if we had this information all along, we should have looked back on it to help us do a better job of staving off the pandemic we are in right now. Because it would sure be nice to have the comforting feeling of control. It’s going to come with having a familiarity with what has worked in the past, a balance of doing all the right things, while being understanding of the struggle and suffering that many are going through in this tough time.
In our future let us look to better patterns of behavior.