I respond well to structure. In fact, I think I can’t live without it.
An evidence of my predisposition to draw and establish boundaries is that I get frustrated when I find myself in the throes of grappling for some form of balance in my life. Maybe it’s an idiosyncratic trait that I have. Or maybe it’s just plain, inexcusable madness; an obsessive behavior.
I always strive to define the boundaries of how I spend my time. Keeping a tight plan and defining the what’s and when’s help me find my balance.
Then again, I must admit that once in a while, an elusive part of me surfaces. As much as I need structure, there’s a part of me that wants to suspend time, free my mind from its delimiting effect and escape to an obscure place where schedules, deadlines, time lines, objectives and achievements don’t exist; where time isn’t of any substance and structure holds no value.
This must have been the thought process Surrealists like André Breton, Salvador Dali, Joan Miró and René Magritte delved into when they espoused the belief that sources of structures like time, faith and authority are too rigid and oppressive to abide by.
Like many of their creations, Bernard Zalon’s piece, “Up In the Park," is a perfect representation of this surrealistic thinking and feeling I get when the structure of life is on the precipice of feeling overbearing.
The anxieties that build up when I start feeling like I’m either running against time, or time is running against me, makes me wish I had the power to stop and control it or had the means to completely escape it.
I want to fly off to Neverland when time starts creeping into my world.
I haven’t done enough good things. I need to find time to pause and recollect. I need to spend more time with my family. I need time to socialize with my friends and experience the world. I need time to pave my career path. I need time to figure out what I want to do. I have to act now or else I’ll get stuck. I need to manage my time so I can do more things. I need to let time stand still so I can balance myself once more.
In Zalon’s piece, the element of time may not be as pronounced, yet I feel a similar tension when I rationalize the juxtaposed images he presents. The bustle and chaos of New York City, symbolized by an intricate black and white sketch of its skyline, dovetails with the colorfully drawn people wandering in the park – aimless, detached, worry-free, lethargic and obviously not running on any schedule.
To be busy or not to be busy, that is the question indeed.
A Wise Man once said,
“There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven”.
With much time to spare, that Wise Man had already acquired everything. He discovered this truth when he started thinking about the brevity of life. At the end of his life, he even called all his wealth, knowledge and experiences “Meaningless, utterly meaningless” in light of the more valuable aspects like wisdom, and purpose.
This Wise Man was right.
When the brevity of life eventually catches up with me, whether that’s in the next few seconds or the next half of my life, I know I won’t find myself wondering where all my time went. It’s not because I stayed on top of my schedule and fulfilled all my plans. It’s because I’ve drawn the boundaries around what matters most and built my life around them.
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