As the pixels morphed in a continuous loop, revealing intricate patterns and disturbing scenes, my mind’s eye, already disoriented from a couple of FIFA-induced sleepless nights, reached the limits of its perception. Storm clouds gathered outside of Stockholm’s Fotografiska museum and the view inside was no less turbulent. The wisps of cognition that had been flitting through my brain these last weeks reached their apotheosis as the realization washed over me – my life is the image that I alone create.
International travel can wreak havoc on the very concept of reality. Awaking in a strange bed, creating a new routine, adopting the habits of another citizenry, conversing in a foreign tongue, the resulting disassociation stretches the boundaries of what it means to be oneself. A psychedelic experience without the psychotropic inputs, it is possible to have a transcendent hiatus from the mundane. Just as magic potions can induce introspection, so too can time away from one’s typical locale.
A bit rattled, I walked for a while on the busy afternoon streets with tunes in my ears, letting the powerful force course within me. Advertisements in Swedish caught my attention, their too-perfect images of bright smiles and radical adventures linking into the day’s theme of distorted reality. Although, in truth, there being no definable baseline for what is real and what is merely perception, marketing is less distortion than it is ideation. If Volvo or Velo tells me that it is true, then their hope is that their messaging becomes part of my belief system.
Politics being nothing more than marketing driven by power rather than currency, to the extent those are distinguishable, candidates and their factions aim to create a collective consciousness centered on the rather foolish idea that there is a simple solution to the enormously complicated process of governing a massive populace. While I desire to align myself with those that at least loosely share my values, there is an inherent fiction in the notion that we can see the world in the exact same way.
On this occasion of America’s semiquincentennial, it is striking to contemplate the imagery of eagles and muskets and britches and hand-sewn flags that captures the revolutionary spirit of what could just as easily be characterized as petulance around the idea of taxation. If the same groups that champion liberty are also responsible for subjugation, there may be no separation between patriotism and branding, the formation of a mythology that can at once inspire and terrify. The true reality of Yorktown or Appomattox or Versailles is intensely personal to all those directly and tangentially affected, whichever way they choose to see those events and all the rest of the past 250 years.
It is in this idea where we find true freedom, that our realities can shift with our whims, to suit our needs in whatever moment we find ourselves. Just as smiling when one is sad can spread a ray of joy in the darkness, so too can the principle apply on a larger scale. It may be intangible – choosing to see oneself in a better light, boosting self-image. The effort can be tangible, like leaving a rote job to build a new company, giving voice to internal creativity by painting or writing a book, starting a family to not only create a new reality but also a new life.
As much as it is tempting to ignore the inevitable truth that external circumstances will have an effect, it is also comforting to know that we can place those events within the narrative that we form and see the world as we choose.