The Unexpected Beauty of Objects

I was washing my car today for the first time.

That’s not an interesting statement, but it is for me, because when I have cleaned my car in the past, it has either involved paying someone to do it, or using a machine.

To the experienced observer my dilemma may sound incredibly funny, because cleaning a car is a mundane activity. Yet I suppose I flag it up as worthy of a blog due to the ideas elicited in my mind as I undertook the activity.

In the recent past, my brain would have told me that I would have a better evening of I stayed in the house, lay on the couch and watched television. Now, my mind seems to be craving action as the television has run out of interesting and novel original content. In fact it seems as if the hypnosis of staring at a box compulsively has worn off and I’m somehow more of myself than something programmable.

Rubbing my car with polish makes me feel bad for not spending the time maintaining the car. This is the object that takes us where we need to go. It keeps us warm in the winter and cool in the summer and protects us from rain. It gets us to places we would not be able to reach on our own. It is a faithful friend and I suppose it dawns on me that the objects I perceive in front of me are imbued with the same life force as any other thing in my life.

The more contextual experience had with an object propels the object to new levels of meaning with how one can use it. My film camera will always mean more to me than any new camera, as it belonged to my mother. My wedding ring will always mean more than any other ring, for obvious reasons. You get the gist.

So then it follows that when I am searching for inspiration and find myself staring at an object I would have once viewed as terribly uncool, I find myself wondering at the immense detail the immature mind has missed out on perceiving. The joys of uncovering new layers of meaning and beauty that were hiding in plain sight this whole time.

The image from this post is from a 70s comic about the Rapture. Not my first port of call for graphic design inspiration, but as I think about the style and the concept being illustrated, I cannot help but be struck with a sense of wonder. If we out aside anyone’s personal belief system for a minute, we can appreciate that trying to visualize an event such as the Rapture is an intense challenge, and the concepts brought forward to image certainly inspire me as I engage in challenging visual adaptation.

I’ll finish this thought with another little ambling output, as I move on to perhaps the most momentous day of my life so far, but it fills me with such excitement to be able to think about showing new life all of the wonders of creation. Creation in and of itself is the meaning of life, and its exciting to be playing a small part in that process.