Hearing of a blind cat, vision of a deaf man......We actually pay people to find these things in front of our eyes and tell us they are good. We have lost the ability to explore our own world without a guidebook. A magazine to tell you how to live in your own town.
There is a secret current flowing through all of our worlds. Our lives are continually influenced by things we miss. That graffiti we pass everyday. That restaurant nestled between shops, we walk by everyday and "not see". When we see the thing, once we are aware of it, it's difficult to imagine how we never noticed in the first place.
That is the key. Once our perception is expanded we lose contact with that earlier state. Similar to those anatomical charts on clear plastic. When one is removed we see more, have a better grasp of the whole. Layer upon layer. There is a heart and a skeleton to urban environments. Like houseman would say "the immortal part". But this only works if we peel back that outer layer and look under. This understanding extends to people, books, work, everything. The truth is under the surface. All design, all style, all music starts invisible.
All growth comes from the inside out. The scale goes down to the "invisible" the cellular. This invisible growth is what moves all things. But it really isn't invisible in a human sense, it isn't self conscious. That's the key, things that are self conscious need others to be aware of them. When a thing simply is and is accepting it becomes invisible to the masses who are trained from childhood to be aware of the world that is aware of them. Or more accurately the world that pays attention to you.
There is no good or bad implied in that statement. But there is a sense of shallow vs. deep or more like on the surface vs. under the surface. A shallow being who has been used to a certain type of attention cannot accurately perceive a different type of attention. We respond more often to people who are aware of our weaknesses not our strengths. We accept our strengths but loath our weaknesses. The weak takes precedent over the strong due to focus. We hate the idea of people seeing our weaknesses and the moment we try to hid them we draw attention to them. This is very basic. Anyone looking can see all we are trying to hide.
No we cannot simply destroy the weak side but we can focus on the strong. One represents forward the other represents backward.
There are different methods of perceiving the world. From the inside out or the outside in.
A criminal regretting he was caught or a criminal regretting he did the crime.
One may rage and rail against the world or his lot in life but he cannot change it he can only alter himself. The most difficult thing is to accept this.
This is how the urban environment grows. All growth starts with the ones who are doing for the sake of doing. They engage the city. They love the city or hate it. They write on it's walls, they communicate through code and mysterious pathways the others don't even see. They live under the layer. They are the true urban masters. They are the ones whose cast offs create our style and our views.
Eating in places that don't exist and shopping in stores that are hidden. Dancing and living behind the scenes. Alive. L'art de vivre.
The idea of street style. Street art. It was there for years but someone had to package it and attach a label for us to want to consume it. It existed and was in front of us but we never saw it. But once someone told us it was good, then "it was good".
The concept of being aware of a trend means you have missed the trend. The ones who set trends aren't aware of it. To be cool is to not be aware of being cool. Just being makes one cool, living is all we need to do.
My goal is to explore these things to peel back the layers of the world around me and open my eyes to the things in front of me I never see.
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