"Flight" 24x48 oil on canvas by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
"Happiness vrs. the Unhappy Soul - I LUST For Passion"
I was prompted by someone dear to me to consider what happiness is and how to find it. I must tell you ahead of time that I am an artist and my consideration of happiness might be distorted from yours.. yes you may think so. My approach is that we are ALL floundering to find our way. We stumble, recognize the pebbles and sometimes boulders and then? We continue on because we have learned a few things. (?)
Take me with a grain of salt and perhaps your own conclusions as well.
You can't let anyone, be it spouse or lover, put you in a 'specific' box, just because you don't know what kind of box works for you. Just because what makes them happy does not make you happy, does not mean that you can't be happy, once you FIND what makes you happy. You can't settle for what someone else loves in life, just because you don't know yet. Just because you don't feel the same as another person, does not mean there is something wrong with you.
Here is what "I" think...
Happiness is a very elusive thing... overrated as I have said before to some who know me. It comes in spurts.. and I think most times we don't recognize it when it is...
ALL AROUND US...
and then...
It is gone.
We have to try to see it when it is there though and then begin to embrace it. The more we do, the more we will understand what there was/is about it that makes us feel that way. I think it is much easier to cradle.. coddle even, pain and the dark side. I do that... that is what art is about to me. I am just being honest as an artist with the artist's soul I was born with. I have always said and felt too, that there is nothing particularly "interesting about happy". It just isn't that interesting... and does not spring forth any great works of art. There are many who would beg to differ with me... and I understand their approach to things, but it just does not work for me. Am I doomed for depression? At times I guess yes. A bitter pill is swallowed and I hold it within my trembling hands before I partake... each and every single time.
I just watched the movie, "Modigliani" Here is the theme song at the end...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbaiMd3AnjI&NR=1
I think it so fitting that this is the end of the movie... the credits, as if it is our very lives being considered.
Consider...
I think there is a part of ME that does not really want to be happy... in happy there is no art, not what I consider to be true art... no true passion and the mere fact that it is so fleeting makes it too fragile to deal with. So again I go back to "What is INTERESTING about happy?"
There is a spot inside everyones soul that seeks to understand their passion... and so they eternally lust after it. I do. You do, even if you deny that it might come artistically... it does. If God exists at all, it is in creativity. He/she... IT... IS CREATIVITY. Consider flowers in the desert. To deny that part of yourself.. or for me to put it on the shelf, is in fact the greatest sin. But as I wrote... this is just me, take it or leave it.
I say...
FEEL DEEPLY
SEEK WHAT YOU FEEL WITH A LOVERS LUST AND FEED THAT PASSION.
And if you don't know what it is? It is NEVER up to ANYONE else to tell you or to confine you in theirs...
the RESPONSIBILITY IS YOURS.
This is after all... YOUR LIFE.
Life is fragile and yet... difficult to kill. We give it away or we honor it... it is up to you and up to me to do with it as we will.
The mix of happiness and unhappiness is so that we will know the difference.
We are not in Africa watching our baby being held high with a sword... that is not unhappy, that is evil. So we can't confuse those things with atrocities. We must recognize them though.. because it takes true passion to overcome evil.
Back to being happy? IS IT in those fleeting seconds that are within a song that makes us feel that we can indeed fly? If so, that is passion known.
To neglect it is like leaving a baby on the side of the road unattended.
Pick up the baby...IT IS "YOU".
by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
copyright 2009
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