Beguiled– At West End Gallery
But I must finally realize that I am subject to these sudden transformations. The thing is that I rarely think; a crowd of small metamorphoses accumulate in me without my noticing it, and then, one fine day, a veritable revolution takes place.
–Jean-Paul Sartre, The Diary of Antoine Roquentin (1949)
How many of us recognize those changes, the small metamorphoses as Sartre described them, that take place within us on a constant basis? How we see ourselves has us believing that we are the same as we always were but that can’t be, can it?
I tend to believe that most of us simply adapt to the accumulating changes, whether or not we recognize them. But for some, is there a time of veritable revolution when a tipping point is reached and the whole of those changes far outweighs our long-held identity of self?
What happens on that day? Does the identity we once knew as ourselves succumb to the revolutionary new self and agree to a new form of co-existence between the two? Or is it such a divisive conflict that the old self will not allow the new self to rule and, as a result, destroys both?
I don’t know. Don’t even know why this came up this morning. Maybe it is because I have had that conflict, that veritable revolution, within myself years ago, when the new identity began to exert its will over the old me. For a while back then, there was a lot of doubt as to the outcome. Thankfully, both still exist but the old me defers in almost all cases to the new. The old me seems okay with the changes wrought by that veritable revolution. Seems glad to just in a hand in the whole thing.
As always, not sure this makes any sense to anyone. A lot of ramblings made before 6 AM are suspect that way. Thanks for bearing with me– the new me, not the old.
Okay. Here’s a song for this week’s Sunday Morning Music. It’s Holding Back the Years from Simply Red. I chose it just because I haven’t heard it in quote some time. It’s one of those tunes where my appreciation for it has grown over the years since it was released back in 1985. Back when I was the old me. It hits closer to the bone now. I don’t usually like to play (or watch) 1980’s music videos but this one is pretty well done, focusing on singer Mick Hucknall who also wrote the song, which deals with coming to terms with the changes in his life.
A little more info on the song from Wikipedia: Hucknall wrote the song when he was 17, while living at his father’s house. In a 2018 interview, Hucknall said the song was inspired by a member of the teaching staff at Manchester School of Art, where Hucknall was a fine-art student: the lecturer suggested the greatest paintings are produced when the artist is working in a stream of consciousness, which Hucknall then tried to apply to songwriting – “Holding Back the Years” was the second song he wrote using this method.
Wise lecturer…
Redtree Times 