The Space

Thank you, Serena Van der Woodson, for keeping things real for me, today.

An hour of 'Gossip Girl' is what I needed to shake off the numbness in my head after I watched 'The Stoning of Soraya M'. The movie and the TV show in the backdrop of what I was reading earlier today (Nabokov's lecture on Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'), made me want to pause and reflect on the interpretation of human beings in art and entertainment (if I may) by human beings.

The plainness, the complexity, the kindness and cruelty is both, appalling and heartwarming at the same time. Despite being cognizant of the dramatization in art, we allow ourselves to diffuse into some sort of space filled with questions, concerns, thoughts and opinions. Conceptually, you can think of the space as an amalgam of your everyday experiences coupled with your fantasies and theories. We sometimes care enough to acknowledge portions of this space. These portions are cleverly disguised commonsensical aspects of life we relate to through certain characters, emotions, opinions, etc. Association with any of these aforementioned depictions is bound to make us feel intelligent or vulnerable to certain emotions, by the virtue of being able to comprehend these representations or read the artist's mind.

That said, on all other occasions, we don't really care enough to react. Label it, indifference.

The navigation of this space, in the context of an individual's mind, is what I find intriguing. How does one's interpretation of art or entertainment differ from her neighbor's, assuming they both know nothing or everything. On one hand, this can be attributed to the willingness of the individual to explore her space. It comes down to her decision to want to feel certain things or submit herself completely to the viewing experience. This entails absolving herself of tribulations momentarily, and dissolving her space with that of the artist's. Now, the degree to which this happens, no doubt, varies from person to person.

Investigating the other hand, we find - her reality envelopes her space, thus, catalyzing her want to rationalize 'face value', for what it is worth. It's always business as usual. Label it, priority.

In conclusion, every individual embarks upon a poignant journey , while viewing any form of art. This journey is a result of entities chosen consciously or unconsciously from one's space, and transmuted to a unique fleeting experience of an artist's representation.

This experience can only be limited by either the individual's resistance to emotional dramatization or to a certain extent, a personal license to disregard something, only because you don’t like the medium. And that is fair. Label it, preference.