My status at the moment is describing an experiment I've been doing with my writing for a while...an artistic experiment. You could call it trashcan beautiful...seeing the beauty in something as ugly as a trashcan. There is a wonderful book series written by the anonymous student of an adept - the student was later revealed to be Cyril Scott (you can look him up on Wikipedia). One of the books mentions how to attain eternal happiness...true happiness. It has to do with seeing the beauty in everything around you, and loving everything around you. Universal Love.

I'm trying to do something similar with my experiment. "Negative" things can be beautiful too...most often that term is applied mistakenly; negative can be applied to energies, or perhaps attitudes, but who's to say what things are negative? Is a cracked sidewalk ugly and negative? Is the only beauty to be found in perfection? Or found in nature? Or found in certain colours? My favourite colours (though they are not technically colours) are black, gray, and white. Shades of these are beautiful to me. I like cracks in sidewalks. Perfect sidewalks seem sterile to me. Cracks in roads are dangerous; potholes are dangerous. I see these things as dangerous...but I see them as beautiful.

I have a hard time with the things I see as beautiful because many of them are also dangerous - broken down cars, black smoke, crumbling buildings. Decay. But can't there be beauty in everything?

I find this picture beautiful; but I can't explain that to someone. It's dark. It's a decaying subway. It's underground. Most of what's there is hidden.

It's how I like my literature - transgressive fiction. Minimalist, exploring the "dark underbelly" of society, with characters who are cynical and possibly have given up. Characters who are separated from typical society in some way, for some reason. It's how I write - the same sort of characters, cynical, separated from society, feeling alienated. Given up.

But, my characters always find some peace in the end. They find those who are like them, or some way to fit in without fitting in. They don't need to fit into everyday society; they just need to find a way to be okay with themselves where they are.

But...I am Light. This picture is beautiful to me as well. There is colour. The light insinuates that it is a beautiful day. It is a happy picture. So much pink, for love, and blues and greens, for Earth, and yellows, for the Sun...perhaps a bit of black, and white, and silver, for modern. It is a very clean, bright hand.

I am writing a fantasy about a young woman trying to get in touch with her Higher Self so that she can be a good queen to her people, and protect them from a trying time that is coming. It fits the definition of an epic. My character is very Light, very Love, understands her society and views it as the Whole it is, rather than the parts most of the society views itself as. She is the exact opposite of some of the stories I write.

And yet, even in those darker stories, the point is to find love and acceptance even when you feel outside of everything else. Find it within yourself, and find it within those around you who care. Those who don't care...their opinion isn't important.

It's hard to explain. But it is an interesting experiment to experiment with. =)

How can anyone explain to others something so intimate about themself? Few people see decay and desctruction as beautiful. Fewer people see the beauty in everything. There are very few things I find ugly; people have told me I am cynical, or that I'm dark, and I am associated with those things. But I am complex.

I consciously began trying to see the beauty in the ugly about a year or two ago. No...maybe more...maybe more like three years ago. I looked up one day from where I was on the bus and looked at the road in front of me, and suddenly it was the most beautiful thing in the world. I wanted to capture that moment forever. I am constantly in search of the Perfect Camera - because my memory isn't good enough, and I see beautiful things and want to see them forever. I want to carry them with me.

That aside - I really have seen the beauty in the ugly for years before that...just not consciously. I used to struggle with depression - many people in high school do, and I was in high school when I had this issue. I took solace in beauty, and I found beautiful the things I could identify with, and I felt depressed, so the things I identified with were the things that were lonely, apart, ugly, and dark. Now, I have reached a state where everybody, everything, anything you hand me or show me, is beautiful to me. Or, I suppose almost everything. Certain colour combinations...do something weird in my brain. They make me feel like my energy has been dulled out, and I feel sick to my stomach. But for the most part...I see beauty in so much around me. I wish you could see through these eyes - I wish you could see how much I see is beautiful.

There is no proper end to this. I had a vague idea of where I was going when I started. It did some loop-di-loops in the middle. Now...it's wherever it is. I'll leave you with a photo of my arm, as it looked on To Write Love On Her Arms Day:

peace, love, dove, incense, jelly beans, and cherry coke.

If any of this doesn't make sense - I've had a few hours of sleep and I'm in outer space land in my head. It's very nice here. You should join me. Everything is wonderful.