At art school, many years ago, they used to say draw what you see, not what you think you see.
I’ve been thinking about that a tonne recently but it turns out it isn’t really just about drawing. It’s about attention. About learning to actually see what’s there, not what you assume is there. Perspective matters in drawing. Even if only so you can see it clearly before you choose to disregard it. Otherwise you’re just repeating symbols. A face becomes an idea of a face. A life becomes an idea of a life.
Maybe living works the same way? Live what you are, not what you think the world wants to see. It sounds simple, almost too simple, but it isn’t. Because as you get older you realise you’ve built this kind of armour. It protects you. But how can you be flexible enough to catch life’s curveballs when you’re wearing metal clothes? You can’t even breathe properly in there. And after a while you forget it’s armour at all. Your comfy concrete cage that’s been setting slowly, over a lifetime.
We’re actually blind to ourselves. Not in some dramatic way, just practically. Everyone has a blind spot. Blind spots are necessary for self protection. It’s the place you can’t look directly at and it’s all fogged up. A self made smokescreen. On your own, you can’t really see through it. You need a reflective surface. A mirror. And it doesn’t actually matter what that mirror is. A person. A situation. A moment when things line up in a way you didn’t plan.
And sometimes, at the right moment, something strange happens. You can see clearly through the blind spot, but only because you’re not looking through it directly. And, like a lens that finally finds focus you finally see yourself. The real thing. Not who you thought you were. Not who you’ve been trying to be. Just the bare bones of you.
Sometimes that mirror is trauma, and that’s painful and brutal and not rose tinted. And sometimes it’s a person. Someone who, through your blind spots and theirs, through some kind of miracle, sees you more clearly than you’ve been able to see yourself. And when you recognise that reflection, there’s a kind of relief in it. Like recognising your own face after years of drawing it from memory.