Aleksandra Galert's Blog: I'm thinking about... - Posts Tagged "shakespeare"

In my photography school, I have a colleague, who is trying to find a formula for everything: in such cases use this lens, for such pictures use this aperture, for those choose longer shutter speed and for editing these use Photoshop, but for others Lightroom. The problem is, in photography, as in any art, there’s no formula. You just have to get to know some rules and then use your brain, heart and experience, to create pictures that express yourself. Nobody can tell you exactly what you should do and this is the hardest part of it, but also the best one. That is why art creations are a never ending story, as there are endless ways to paint, write or take pictures. Even if it seems there are only a few technics to use.

This example made me think, that with life, it’s exactly the same. Nobody can tell us what we should or should not do, because they are not in our shoes. Like in the art you create your own style by trying and loosing, in life it’s exactly the same: you find yourself this way. That is why trying to copy somebody else’s life usually ends up as failure, because everybody’s different, and that is what is so beautiful.

William Shakespeare said: “Expectation is the root of all heartache.” Another quote I read lately, this time of Audrey Hepburn is this: "I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it." Comparing those two quotes of such famous people I come to conclusion that maybe sometimes we fail, because we just want too much. Has it ever happened to you that you wanted something so badly and it was never coming, but when you eventually stopped thinking about it, it came true very soon? I think in our busy lives, we should create a balance between our hard work and race for success, and just keeping calm and being happy. Time will show what comes out of this formula.

Lately I’ve noticed an interesting trend in the young-adult literature and movies. I’ve found it for example in two dystopia books: “The maze runner” by James Dashner and “Divergent” by Veronica Roth. The trend I’m talking about is seeing the life as an experiment. In both of the books the main characters eventually find out that their life was controlled and examined by other people sitting in some laboratory, that the home they took for a save enclave surrounded by danger was in fact their prison. The phenomenon of the popularity of such ideas seems fascinating for me. A few weeks ago I’ve been talking with my aunt about those books and the vision of life as an experiment, when she said: “You know, there might be some true in that. Like with the books of Jules Verner – everybody thought it was a total fiction, whereas many things appeared to be true”. I have to admit I was surprised at that statement. It made me think it all over even more deeply.

Why do people want to believe such things? Why do people underestimate their freedom? I guess the answer is simple: because it’s easier. On every failure you can just say it was programmed that way. Somebody else is taking the decisions. You don’t have much influence on what you do. That vision is equally pessimistic as the Shakespeare’s theory theatrum mundum – the world is a theatre and people are the actors directed by God. I guess the experiment theory is the modern version of the one of the theatre that was present even in the ancient times. Which is actually fascinating that even so many centuries later, people still think similarly. Our live conditions have changes, the technic has developed, but the human fears and problems are still the same. On the one hand, they want freedom, but on the other, when they really get it, they turn their minds into the direction of pessimistic theories that we are just the toys in somebody else’s hands. Freedom is difficult: you’re the one responsible, it depends on you if you achieve your goals or not, it depends on you what your life will be like. This scares people. Just look at the work market: how many people dream about starting their own company, about making some difference? Many, many, many. And how many actually do something to achieve it? Very few. Why? Because it’s easier to go every day to the same office, do what the boss tells you and later go home and not worry. Starting something on your own demands much more, and the most difficult is that you have no boss there, no guide. You’re all alone on the ocean full of storms and unknown reefs. But I believe it’s better to try and fall and learn and fall again, instead of just obeying the orders of others. Because when you go through the storms, you see the unbelievably bright sun on the sky clear as ever.