Voices in my head

This particular photo that I named “Street art on Church Street” was a joy to take and the street art depicted in it is fun to look at. There’s a lot going on in it and I often find myself looking at it. It was while looking at it that I recalled, albeit in a convoluted way which I won’t go into, a memory from another time.

Years ago I knew a girl who worked as an occupational therapist. Occasionally she would introduce me to some of the patients she looked after, from quadriplegics to schizophrenics. Some of these people displayed amazing strength of character and courage. Fully aware of their predicaments they would nonetheless feel at least some gratitude for being alive. Even some of the mentally ill patients managed to find joys amidst the anguish they all too often found themselves in.

I’d like to say that meeting these people had a profound effect on my life but it didn’t. At least not back then when I was too young and self-absorbed to appreciate any lessons these people’s predicaments may have held. There was one thing however, that I remember wondering about whenever I would chat to some of the more lucid mentally ill patients. Some of these people talked about the voices in their heads and how scary or controlling they were, how they would not shut up and how tiring it all was. Listening to them I couldn’t stop myself wondering where the line was between sanity and insanity. After all, I too had voices in my head telling me all sorts of thing — yes, okay, in my case they’re just thoughts, every one has them, but understand that I have always questioned what control I have over thoughts so they may as well have been “voices in my head”. And there were times when it all felt a little overwhelming. So what is it that can push us over the line into insanity? How fine a line are we talking about anyway? Is there a line at all or is it just a matter of degrees?

Of course I have no idea what was really going on with these patients and I certainly don’t want to simplify the issues they faced or imply that what I refer to as “the voices in my head” is even comparable to their mental turmoil but to this day I still think about that fine line which separates the sane and the insane. There’s a lot of crazy happening in the world today. Arguably it’s probably no more than during any other time in history but thanks to the Internet we are certainly made more aware of it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but I do have friends who can’t help but take it all to heart and end up finding themselves feeling depressed and hopeless which is not a good place to be in.

And this is one reason I enjoy photography today more than ever before. It offers me a refuge where I can look at the world with equanimity and tranquillity. It’s a time when the voices in my head are quiet, dormant even. The only thing going on, as it were, is this naked awareness which is always there, at least until the mind kicks in again. It’s not a case of ignoring the world and all its troubles, on the contrary, it is a way of seeing the world whole, seeing the string that binds us intimately, the good, the bad and the ugly so to speak. Seeing the patterns amidst the chaos. Understanding without judgement. The trouble is there is little I can say about it. No words I know satisfactorily expresses this thing that’s going on in those timeless moments.

But photographs and art do come close.