+ Your Jokes Suck: Why I Won't Date You. +

I've kept my mouth shut on this for a long time. But today, I'm pissed off enough to say something.

So here it is. Your jokes suck.

Sometimes I laugh at them, but they still suck. And I wish you'd stop.

Vulgarity and negativity are two things I do not appreciate. If you've ever wondered why I've peaced out so quickly, there's a good chance that one of these two things were the reason.

Here's the deal: Negative humor is humor that does harm, not good. And humor is supposed to be a good thing.

If you're filling your jokes with the f-bomb, tits, jews, blacks, blowjobs, fags, pubes, women in the kitchen, or any other topic that you haven't grown up enough yet to understand, you aren't funny.

Profanity and vulgarity are a cop-out. Let me say that once more. Your jokes are a cop-out.

It says to me that you don't have a real sense of humor. You have zero creativity.

Go read the definition of 'joke' in the dictionary. Notice in addition to 'something said or done for amusement,' it also says, 'a worthless thing or person.'

The subject of your joke is made worthless by your words.

Next time you crack a crude joke about sex, remember that you're subconsciously drilling it into your head (and everyone else around you) that women are worthless.

Next time you crack a joke about fags, ask yourself if you'd walk up to any human being and tell them to their face that they're worthless.

Guys, I'm looking primarily at you on this one, because it seems to be where most of it is coming from. Yeah, it's true that girls want guys with a sense of humor. That's one of the first things on all of our lists. But here's a secret: the women worth having are looking for men with good humor. Not negative humor. So step it up.

Girls, next time some guy cracks a joke about how a woman doesn't need a driver's license because it doesn't take a car to get between the kitchen in the bedroom, stand up for yourself and fight. If you laugh too, you're putting yourself down. We're allowing it. And I'm sick of it.

Oh, and girls? I'm not done with you yet. Quit joking that all men are assholes, or that the female race is superior. They're not, and we're not. You're making it worse for both of us.

There is an element of truth to all jokes, which arguably is what makes them so 'funny.' I challenge you to listen to yourself and to your friends, and pick out who or what is the brunt of your jokes. Go face yourself in the mirror and ask yourself some hard questions. Think about the truth that you are agreeing to, without realizing it.

The truth you believe is communicated through your jokes. Think I'm taking this too seriously? I'm not going to apologize for looking for a good man with a real sense of humor, who can make me laugh without the bite. And trust me, I'm looking.

Don't allow yourself to crack a joke if it's at someone else's expense. Hard, huh?

I know.

The good news is that negative humor is a habit. And habits are breakable. I did it. It was hard, but I did it.

Stop telling jokes that suck. You're hurting yourself, and a lot of other people.

- - -

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+ there's a mess inside my head +

I haven't been writing much, lately. All that is about to change, starting with this.




<bgsound src="http://laurennicolelove.com/wrote/lemonade.mp3">

+ direction, expectation, and vision +

I have had it. Being limited by others is one thing, but self-limitation is something that we must refuse to partake in. There has been much growing under the surface for awhile now, and it's about to sprout. It's going to cause a scene. In my personal life, in my professional life, and everywhere in-between. I'm getting my vision back, and I'll explain this soon, as well as what it looks like. But first, some backstory.

Direction, Expectation and Vision.

As kids, we were most likely given one of these things, and maybe two. The problem with this recipe for life is that it's just like baking: if one ingredient is missing, it won't rise.

The first half of my childhood was marked with direction and expectation.

By expectation, I mean hope merged with well-meaning standards. Expectancy to do well, expectantancy that I was fully equipped to succeed. Let yourself escape from the "my parents pushed me too hard" for a moment and recognize the healthy benefit of expectation. Children should never doubt that they have what it takes to be and become an amazing, fully alive, valuable human being. Complete with glittering stars and confetti.

Direction. Direction is a gift. If we were blessed with 'involved' parents or teachers, they pointed us in healthy directions. They laid out our schooling in a wise and effective way, with our best interests in mind. They recognized our strengths and put corrolating opportunities in our paths, encouraging us along the way. They affirmed both our interests and our bents, and showed us how to manifest our talents in real, tangible ways. They introduced structure to our creative, questioning minds and taught us how the world worked.

But vision, I lacked.

Vision. The ability to see the purpose, the meaning, the big picture. Something that resonates in the depths of your heart that fights when all odds are against you. What makes good men great. There was no ultimate goal, and no driving force that had been anchored in my heart that held me faithful to a consistent path.

Vision can go one of two ways. Vision can be implanted deep into your heart, the core of the being that is You. Or, it can become a sometimes-mocking voice that taunts you with not being enough until you accomplish enough to reach something distant and unattainable. Healthy vision is drawn out of who you are and the purpose of your life. Unhealthy vision is simply expectation on steroids. Re-read that.

I'll cut my parents a break on this. It's nearly impossible to give a young child true vision within
the bounds of his or her education without it seeming like expectation taken too far. Debilitating, can't-live-up-to, never-good-enough expectancy. In order to impart vision to a child, a clean line must be drawn between school (accomplishments) and his or her personal identity. Children define themselves by their schooling - and so they should! It's the majority of their daily life. They aren't old enough to compartmentalize and to separate who they are from what they do and how they do it. Still, if you are influencing the life of a child, make every effort to draw that line, and plant seeds deep into their soul - let go of pruning for a bit.

Let me transition to the second half of my "education years."

My unhealthy vision culminated when I was 14 years old. My parents were ecstatic. Finally, I cared. I was motivated, I pushed myself, and it seemed to them that I had finally found something I loved. Any outsider watching my outrageous 'success' would have assumed years of direction, expectation and vision had finally collided and was resulting in the type of fireworks that are every parents' dream for their child. What they saw was me latching onto success in the political and educational realm - something "clicking" for me internally.

What was really going on was the invisible birth of a new vision. A new love. Unfortunately, it manifested itself in a way that (I believe) caused my parents to withdraw their direction. Perhaps it seemed that it wasn't needed - direction was complete. I became obsessed with politics, teaching, traveling, staffing, speaking, debate, week-long conferences - all at the age of 14. Not because I loved the content, but because I LOVED people. Networking. Connections. Traveling. Seeing new things, feeling new things, hearing new things. I loved the necessity of attention to detail, organization - all infused with Big Ideas. A new love and a new vision was growing rapidly, but the content was all wrong.

This continued throughout high-school, literally 'til the end of the first semester of senior year when I had 43 credits and only needed 21 to graduated. I was at the end of my rope with classes on politics, American history and economics. Yes, they interested me - but so did other things. I was burned out. Two isolated, off-color incidents had pulled me out of both major high-school social networks (within the political & debate realms) and I was left with a handful of things I just didn't care about anymore, revealing the unhealthy vision in all of it's nakedness.

Other things - other people - were pulling on my heart strings, and I was slowly processing through this unhealthy vs healthy vision that slowly been weaving itself through my heart and mind.

I still had the expectation, and I had conflicting visions. And no direction.

So I quit. I spent the second half of senior year working, trying to deal with family issues, found that I couldn't - and left. I dropped everything. I moved out, moved to Phoenix, and started a new life. I made some mistakes, yes - but when we're burned out, we burn bridges. And sometimes when we reach a level of inner turmoil, we have to give ourselves forgiveness in advance, with the understanding that death precedes life. And more often than not, that pain births vision.

The next five years was spent filtering, re-filtering, and identifying vision. Finding the direction that I lost. Turning down the expectation a few notches. Seeking wisdom and fighting to find the correct measurements of these three that will result in something that will rise.

I explain this all to you in hopes that you will somehow be able to pick out some structure points that connect with your story. In hopes that you will begin to draw the line between your expectation-on-steroids vision and your true, heart-and-soul vision. In hopes that you can grasp and appreciate the outrageous task that is parenting, and cut your parents some slack. In hopes that you will make a conscious effort to draw the line between actions and heart in your children, now or later. In hopes that you recognize the lack of direction given to you in your own life, come to terms with it, and now seek it out.

It's never too late, and your life is still as pliable as it ever was. Truly.

Find the sources of your expectation, or lack thereof.

Find the sources of your direction, or lack thereof.

Find the sources of your vision, and your lack thereof.

Reflect, be released, choose love, and move forwards.

Vision is everything - fight for it.

I will post more on vision later; I know that not nearly enough was said about it, and I raised some internal questions that I haven't answered yet. Until then, I will email a copy of Danielle LaPorte's Authentic Dreaming Worksheet to anyone that would like it. Leave your email in the comments. She's a vision addict, and an amazing asset in recovering it.

- - -

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+ gifts: intimate, all-consumed, enraptured. +

Before I get into this post that accidentally turned into a book, look at these photos! As a little girl, I was captivated with water, and would sit in the tub for hours splashing, pouring and watching it. Oh love love love.




In my minds eye, I can see "a perfect relationship." Not in terms of place, time, success, looks, or circumstance - but emotions, joy, trust, honesty and openness. Oneness. Thanks to hundreds of movies, we all have the image of a woman running at a man, full-speed, and throwing herself into his arms - ecstatic and all-consumed with the heart that is before her. Nothing else in her line of sight. Joy painted across her face. It's almost a renewed form of innocence. Love does that.

Anyway, I was thinking about these things as I drove home late last night after hearing a teaching on marriage and oneness at JHouse (such perfect timing for me, somehow - even though I'm as single as it gets) - bouncing images off the walls of my mind. I was a mess when I had showed up at JHouse and Kelly was a doll and spent the first chunk of the service praying and crying with me in an empty hallway.

Forgive me as I piece these thoughts together poorly.

Months ago, someone gave me an image of God offering me a wedding band - he is my husband, my faithful. The whole God is my husband/boyfriend thing has always really irritated me, by the way. It wasn't til I switched out the traditional word for what that relationship WAS to what it MEANT - what I needed and wanted in that relationship - my faithful, my rock, supporter, encourager, helper, provider, lover, companion and confidante - that I realized that yes, this is who God is for me. It gets harder still when we're also told he is our Father, and then that Jesus sticks closer than a brother - a strange sort of family that clearly wouldn't work in human terms. But remove the limitations of relationships defined on earth, and think about what your heart desires. That one heart to cleave to, run to, fall back on, love on and be loved by, trust wholly, to teach you, to provide for you, to listen to you, to lead you, to sit with you, and forever on. The point is that God more than fills that unrelenting need in all ways, and in ways we can't understand.

Anyway, I've accepted that he is the other half in this all-encompassing relationship for me, but in no way has it matched up with that first "perfect, beautiful relationship" I described at the beginning of this post. Some days I've felt let down. Disappointed. On bad days I beg him to show me where that relationship is. Eventually, I think we all get to the place where we decide it's not worth it. If being in a relationship with God is just for the sake of being in one, and having that relationship spot filled, then meh. We could just do without. I could always come back. Oh, that line. (Would we ever want to leave someone that fits that 'perfect relationship' description? Would we ever want to leave when we are crazy-in-love? Food for thought.)

As I was thinking through what Kelly had prayed over me and what we had both heard from God, I got stuck trying to complete this image of God being one who watched over my heart at every minute of the day, and showed up with gifts for me just when he knew I needed them. Why does this not satisfy? Why do I not see the gifts as real gifts? Why do I swallow them down as either "I deserve this," and give him no thanks, or "I don't deserve this, let me work harder," again, with no true thanks. I kept fighting through to try to mesh the image of God's love and provision with my 'perfect relationship' image, and finally I found yet another wall my heart had still standing. It has no name, and a cause unique to no one. It's what develops as a result of flawed relationships with the people in our lives that give to us, added onto the fact that we ourselves have flawed hearts and minds.

This wall - more like chains, or a mask - has kept me from being myself with God when he gives to me. It's kept me from being a woman in love. This mask has kept me from understanding why gifts are given to me and what my response should be, making them not gifts at all. (Isn't that just how the deceiver works? Taking something beautiful and making it into something that it's not?) One of the greatest lies we can ever believe about God is that he doesn't really give gifts.

Gift: something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone; something bestowed or acquired without any particular effort by the recipient or without its being earned.

Let me put it this way. When a man brings a gift to his beautiful woman that he knows she will love - what is his greatest reward in giving it to her? What does he expect in return? He expects no *thing* in return - this is what defines it as a GIFT. But it is given with a hope - a hope of joy, ecstasy, love, thankfulness, and total satisfaction with him. The hope of that 'perfect relationship' manifesting itself in all of its glory. I finally meshed the images together.

When God gives me a gift, he desires nothing from me - but that I throw myself into his arms and tell him a dozen times over how much I love it, how happy it makes me, how much I love him, and how treasured and loved I feel.

Any man reading this, I am sure, will agree with me. That when he brings his girl any gift, there is no greater reward than to see her eyes light up and be completely enraptured with what he gave, and her repeated thanks - attested by the joy on her face. That it pales in comparison to her giving an expected thank you and offering to do something for him tomorrow in return. Yes, men?

Women (and men), if you feel you don't deserve a gift, know that you've already forgotten what a gift is. Begin to learn to be crazy in love with Him. Be ecstatic when you receive your gifts. Because that is why they are given to you.

I hope this made sense.

This is my prayer - that we learn to be the woman enraptured with our gifts. That we learn to abandon the lie that tells us we have to make up for and repay our gifts, and by doing so, disappoint the giver and devalue the gift. Because don't you know that the gift is given because he wants to watch us be delighted?

I have no theological evidence to support this, but I would humbly submit that perhaps the more often we respond to our gifts in this way, the more he will love to give to us. <3>

- - -

You will be made rich in every way
so that you can be generous on every occasion,
and through us your generosity
will result in thanksgiving to God.
2 Corinthians 9:11

If you, then, though you are evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts
to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:10

Pain: What I Learned From Depression, Grief & Brokenness.

It is just outrageous how much I've been growing. You know the first day you feel better after being horribly sick for awhile? You wake up and think, "MAN. I feel so GOOD." It's like that. I am in absolute awe of how good life is lately, and so grateful that God follows through on every single promise. My circumstances have not changed - but my heart has. I am proof that with God, all things are possible. Proof that faith reaps a great harvest beyond what we can expect or comprehend. Proof that healing is real, not just a code word for acceptance of your shit situation.

One of the things that has been breaking my heart lately is watching so many friends and beautiful people go through devastating loss, heartbreak, pain, confusion, betrayal, self-hatred and various struggles - and to offer no greater help than to say, "Go to God. He loves you more than you can ever grasp, and will heal every hurt and answer every question." Because I know that it is one of the hardest things in the world to decide to believe in the midst of all this that God will heal. God will comfort. That one day, we will get to the point where we are on the other side, and become grateful for the pain we went through. Yes, grateful.

Note: I say pain a lot in this post. What I am talking about is the heartwrenching, deepest ache, numbing, debilitating, lonely, hopeless, rock-bottom, can't move, can't function, have-no-one-to-go-to, can't breathe because your lungs are being crushed, utter desperation and despair type of pain. If you've been here, I am talking to you. I know pain.

We talk a lot about healing, about moving on. Growing up, 'getting over it.' By the time all of us go through about 20 years of life, let alone 30 or 40, we're like children that have been hit by trucks on the highway - broken bones, internal bleeding, psychological damage, permanent handicaps, lost limbs. We cannot help but talk about healing, and we operate through our injuries.

We learn to forgive the truck drivers, over and over and over. As we should. But healing? For this we must submit ourselves to the surgeon. We MUST put our bodies, minds and hearts under the lights on the operating table and say, "Fix me. Please, fix me. I cannot."

The last time I checked, surgery was never enjoyable. Stitches aren't fun. Having chunks of debris being picked out of your flesh is excruciating. Having bones re-set is pain upon pain.

But tell me this: Why do you not submit yourself to the one who can heal you?

I didn't, because I was terrified of learning to walk without my crutches. We grow to love what slows us down. I didn't, because I didn't trust a surgeon I couldn't see. I didn't, because it meant that I would have to lie still, and trust hands that I didn't understand. I didn't, because I thought I would get a cookie-cutter Christian treatment that didn't fit me and my unique pain. I didn't, because I thought I would die if I experienced more pain. I didn't, because I thought healing meant, "God will use this for good if you learn to live with this hurt." I didn't, because I didn't think God offered healing as the dictionary defines it: to make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from ailment.

I didn't, because I didn't want to be healed; without wounds. Because I wanted everyone to see what the truck had done to me. To remain injured and in pain meant that everyone would know - and when we are broken, we have a desperate need for others to know. To be validated in our pain. Because usually, those that hurt us are those we love, and consequently, those that hurt us are the ones that do not validate our pain - so we become living, walking messes of cognitive dissonance, silently begging for comfort from those who tell us that we either are not in pain or deserve to be in it. In my experience, I would accurately describe this as hell on earth.

I remember at a low point telling my friend Kelly, "I don't even want to be happy."

I have found that the greatest obstacle between us and God is pain.

Why? Because we are STILL like children in hospital. Crying, shaking, sobbing, and hiding...begging the nurse to not take us to the doctor, because he has needles, knives and scary looking tools. Operating rooms are terrifying.

An interesting thing about humans is that we never change from child into adult. It's not linear. We simply add to and expand ourselves, until one day the calendar says we are an adult. The core of us is still a child. In order to get ourselves to that operating table, we must either choose to believe (faith) the adult that tells us it is for our benefit, or be sedated and held down. Faith is being a child, and choosing to believe something that scares us because we do not know it.

Last night over dinner with Julie, we were talking about my family, and I explained how grateful I was for all the pain I'd been through. Why? Because I have learned to trust the surgeon. I have experienced some of the most difficult pain, and come out alive. I have a compassion and empathy and love for others in pain that will never leave, that has been anchored in the depths of my heart by pain. [ You know we rarely remember exactly what was said or done, but we always remember how it made us feel? Emotions carry a greater weight than specific words and actions. ] I am grateful for pain.

The greatest lesson I have learned through pain is the character of the surgeon.

I have learned that it is his nature to HEAL. His heart to LOVE. His way to COMFORT. His purpose to make us WHOLE.

The second greatest lesson I have learned through pain is to trust what He says over what I feel or know.

He WILL restore; nothing is beyond recovery or worthwhile purpose. He is not harsh, he is not rough, he is not a punishing or angry healer. He will never send you away because the pain is 'your fault.' The pain WILL lessen, and it lessens through patient, steady, often stupid-looking faith. It takes time, but we must hold out, and believe. It will come. It's a promise.

It is easier to trust a doctor with our bodies than with our hearts and minds, but I beg you to trust him.

But trust him wholly. His medicine, his procedures, his love, his way. We cannot half-ass healing, lest we end up worse than where we started. Always go back to him. When it starts to hurt, go to him. Again. And again. And again. When it doesn't make sense, go back to him. When you freak out again, go back to him. When the result doesn't look how you thought it would, go back to him. Always go back to him.

And there is no guilt or shame in asking him for painkillers along the way. But his painkillers, not ours.

I have glimpsed the other side, and it is good.

- - -

"This is what the Lord says:

Your wound is incurable; your injury beyond healing. There is no one to plead your case, no remedy for your wounds, no healing for you. All your allies have forgotten you; they care nothing for you. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds, declares the Lord. Because you are called an outcast for whom no one cares. I will restore life to you and have compassion on you, a city will be rebuilt on your ruins,and the palace will stand in it's proper place." Jeremiah 30

It was I who taught her to walk, taking her by the arms; but she did not realize it was I who healed her. I led her with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from her neck and bent down to feed her. - Hosea 11:3-4

I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten. - Joel 2:25

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13

+ redemption, walks, nature and women +

I sabotage myself daily, but I am told I have one who fights in my behalf.

I flail desperately for something I can lean my weight against, but I am told I have a rock and foundation.

I suffer a debilitating identity crisis, but I am told my name is engraved on his palms for eternity.

I have run and found no escape, but I am told he hides me in the shadow of his wing.

I have set the world on my back and destroyed myself with its weight, but I am told there is one who carries it for me.

I have failed in everything, but I am told I have a redeemer.

I am blind, but I have been told to set my sights on the unseen.

I am covered in bruises like a woman stumbling alone in the dark, but I am told I have a healer whose name is a light to my path.

I am, but I am told He Is.

- - -

I took a walk. The world is beautiful, is it not?









[ full set is here. ]

- - -

what revives
like the natural green
or stills
like running water
what promises
like the oak
or silences
like wind
what glistens
like the flare
and renews
like distance
what commands
like a quiet woman
and what laughs
like her red dress

- - -

Katy Perry has a surprise song on her album. I posted it here so you can all listen to it without downloading. You should. It's well worth the 4 minutes and 9 seconds.

BIG NOTE: I am now selling clothing. Hooray! More will be added soon. Feel free to spread the word since I need/want to get rid of this stuff: : laurennicolescloset.blogspot.com

+ lessons from my mini sabbatical +

[ credit : parker fitzgerald ]

This won't flow. It is all blips and pieces of fragmented thoughts that came to me over the 72 hours I spent without a phone or computer. Some are more developed than others. The photos above were to prepare you for the words below. Enjoy.

.:. we have trained ourselves to look for beauty in other lives, not our own.

.:. we create relationships for ourselves. they are never forced upon us.

.:. the majority of conversations should take place in person, not via text.

.:. the moment technology stops being a resource and becomes a liability, it needs to be re-evaluated. immediately.

.:. social networking should be re-named theworldinyourbedroom.

.:. i have a new ability to see through an online presence and measure the true life content of a person.

.:. we are so dependant on our gps and maps because we live in a constant time crunch. i didn't use my gps this weekend. result: i had to turn around multiple times, and took several 'scenic routes.' i also saw many parts of my city for the first time, and had a few 'well let's see where this road goes' followed with 'oh my gosh here i am!' i put the puzzle pieces together. i feel rebuked for my desire to travel when i haven't taken the time to see my own city.

.:. the majority of my stress is a result of mis-managed relationships and poorly chosen staples of my daily life.

.:. my brain has invented some type of obligation to "finish" everything. pursue things forever. never drop something i began. if i follow a blog, i feel obligated to read every post, eternally. i've placed my interests first, and myself second. how ridiculous.

.:. our thought processes become influenced by the words and images that float around us, even if we do not consciously accept them. saturating ourselves in high-speed communication and heavy content input environments will launch us into a collective lifestyle that no individual could or should live in or up to. hello, stress.

.:. we don't write nearly enough.

.:. if you "don't write", then let me clarify: we don't reflect nearly enough.

- - -

Thoughts on social networking: (you knew it was coming)
We value communication over content. Let me break this down a bit more. We value the relationship over the person. And a bit further...

Social networking is a tool; nothing more, nothing less. It betters a good purpose and exacerbates a poor one. And like any tool, it is only healthy in moderation, and when the master controls it to fulfill the purpose. There is an inherent flaw in humanity that twists everything to be self-seeking unless we acknowledge it and choose to live differently. This manifests itself primarily in our relationships. It is so easy to "have" relationships for the sake of having a relationship with that person. We become tempted to "own" relationships for self-seeking purposes, even if they are as innocent as to fill our universal need for acknowledgement, validation, and worth. Our value has come to sit not on the actual person, but on the connection we have with that person. I even drew a picture to explain.




This is what I mean when I say that social networking either betters or exacerbates. If our value is misplaced, it magnifies our weighty mistake (and selfishness) to a point that we are beyond excuse, and it is recognizable to the naked human eye.

I will say it again: value first the person, not the relationship.

Social networking should exist to plant, nurture and grow our relationships with people (and content, too) that we value. Maybe it would help if we referred to other humans not as people but as lives. NOT to enable us to feed a self-focused desire to multiply all sorts of various fragile and thin "barely-there" relationships with people and content that we only want to care about. Our time is truly limited. Deal it out wisely. Brushing fingertips is not a handshake.

- - -

Hard questions:

.:. If you didn't blog or tweet for a week, who would notice or care? This is not rhetorical. Go name them.

.:. When was the last time you stepped outside of the internet to interact with that person(s)?

.:. How few texts could you get by sending each day?

.:. If you use Google reader, and had a folder for "friends" - what would your ratio of friends to various blogs be?

.:. What do you obligate yourself to that is an illusion?

.:. What have you wanted to do or not do that has been sacrificed for the draw of spiderweb-thin relationships?

.:. Do you seek to document beauty in your own life, or are you guilty of simply coveting beauty in others? (There is a secret hidden here: It exists everywhere, and is found only when documented.)

- - -

the world is too big to be your own.

so find your corner.

water it and make it grow.

and occasionally, take extravagant field trips.

- - -

My final thought: I need more than 3 days of living like this.

- - -

P.S. I got glasses. Seeing is awesome.

+ a painting: this is captivity +

This is an old painting of mine that I realized I wrote a bit about (most of my larger pieces of art are inspired by writing) and felt like blogging about it. It is titled "This Is Captivity." The text is blockquoted below, with more explanation and thoughts underneath. My perfectionist self disappeared when I got to the script - for some reason at the time I didn't care much for the painting and didn't bother taking my time to do the script well. Live and learn.

Held in captivity long enough and your reality changes. Your vocabulary that of an optimist without hope. Your sunrise a rainy afternoon - your freedom an extension of your chain by a few more guilt ridden links. Mourn for an illusion so that your heart is not allowed recognition of death. The color of life fades until you are unsure of even the outlines of the faces you once knew. You struggle only against your own strength instead of that which binds you. This is captivity.

Captivity is traditionally defined as imprisonment, confined to a space, a being that has been domesticated and is now kept so. A captive being one taken in a state of war.

I believe captivity is much broader than what we limit it to through our primarily historical concepts of military wars, battles, and physical force. Captivity is the enemy of freedom; it's absence, the lack thereof. Most people are truly not free.

Imprisonment is not simply living within stone walls, it is the restraint and bondage of the true self. Confinement is not simply forced seclusion, it is the lack of the experience of joy and full life. Domestication is not only an acceptable method of bettering what we own, it is the adaptation of a should-be valued heart for another's purposes or use.

I have watched many close to my heart be taken into captivity as a result of a numerous misbeliefs, untruths, pride, unlove, and ungrace. I have re-written "captivity" as I see it, and sought to portray the captivity of a woman I know. She is held by no physical force, but her heart has most certainly been taken into captivity. The script references that which is closest to her heart, and the doorways through which captivity has slowly and wholly crept in unnoticed; what she has lost and become numb or blind to, and how captivity re-writes our view of reality.

Symbolism in this painting includes the patterned hearts in the background, representing the fact that captivity often comes in the form of patterns, repetition, and dull same-ness; also by what is closest to you. The blindfold for the loss of ability to see that which is before you. The script placed over her chest representing the weight and heaviness captivity holds over the heart. The absence of all five features except for the lips; captivity seems to bring a subconscious, overwhelming hunger and need for anything to bring back the illusion of life. In this woman, I have watched her sexuality, beauty, and femininity numb the pain of everything else she has lost. This is what she still clings to; I believe something deeper still knows that her original self is More.

+ thought > process +

your world is
more
beautiful than mine
and
i don’t
know
why
but
i know that i know
what
i want
and
i know that i don’t know
how to get there
and
i know that
once
i get
there
i may not
want what
i don’t know
how to get.