Fuck Normalcy

       Beauty is all around us. No matter where we are, it’s everywhere. If we don’t see it, or hear it, or smell it, or feel it, it’s because we’ve gone numb to it.
       Our personal appreciation for beauty gets drummed out of us, in countless ways, throughout our lives. From the time we’re practically infants, we’re systematically drilled by authority figures, peers, and the media about what’s beautiful, what isn’t, and exactly “how beautiful” something or someone is compared to something or someone else. Those judgements are dictated by powerful and omnipresent cultural norms (“cultural norms”....now there’s an oxymoron, with the emphasis on moron). But those “norms” often have little to do with our own personal experience.  
       And there’s the rub. Because, beauty is not a fuckin’ competition. It’s an experience. And a very personal experience at that. In fact, one of The Most Personal Experiences we have. Just like most else that is deeply personal, however, once it’s expressed, it gets criticized, ridiculed, and possibly even attacked, if it doesn’t conform to accepted norms. It thus gets depersonalized, in a cultural conspiracy to normalize beauty.
       Now, most would agree that the picture I took and posted here depicts a natural scene that is “beautiful”. So, in this case, my personal expression of beauty falls well within culturally accepted constricts of beauty. But that external cultural constrict has absolutely nothing to do with what this picture, or my personal experience of it.
       I felt this picture before I took it. When I walked out of wherever I was at, on my way to wherever I was going, the beauty that I captured in this picture was already there. All I had to be was be open to it. But that phenomenon is not particular to this picture, or this moment, or this anything. That phenomenon is particular to life itself.
       In terms of what’s beautiful, My Personal Experience of Beautiful is all I have to go on. Not only as an artist, but as a human being. Because what’s beautiful to me is so very personal, that if I can’t, or don’t, or won’t, connect to that, then I lose a piece of myself. I lose a piece of what sets me apart as an individual in this overwhelming vast, homogeneous ocean of conformity, acceptance, and.....”normalcy”.
       Across the board, without exception, my personal philosophy is “Fuck Normalcy”. Because, in most cases, it has nothing to do with reality. At least not my reality. Or, and I challenge you on this, maybe yours......  

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