ALTERED PERSPECTIVE
This image briefly explores another view I have about meaning, which is that we voice ourselves to the world in order to figure out what our meaning in life is. This specific image was chosen because of how the outlines of the woman and her clothes in the drawing make certain elements that I want to discuss stand out and express the traits of the type of individual that inherits my view. However, since this page acts as an initial explanation to my worldview, two songs located on the next page will each tackle a different aspect of the view discussed on this page and deepen my understanding and explanation of my worldview.
First, I put more deep thought into how I viewed meaning in the first reflection, which was that we can only define a meaningful life by looking back on our failures, successes, etc. This view, however, I later realized did not represent me or many others around the world. A central trait that I consider myself to possess is the desire to change the world around me. For example, we are usually told by family, friends, and others that we should find a significant other to marry and have children with. This would supposedly make us happier and more satisfied. However, I have read that fifty percent of marriages end in divorce and one of the parents, typically men, is left without custody of the children. It was observations like these that made me question what I was being told by society and those around me regarding the path I should be taking to live a meaningful life. Due to this questioning of others, I have wanted to change the world around me, and I have seen this desire amongst others as well. Patrisse Cullors was not content with the treatment of African-Americans and so she helped found the Black Lives Matter movement. Eric July was not content with the events concerning many different subjects like politics and comic books and so he started a band and YouTube channel where he can voice his opinions. Hence, due to my desire to cause change and this same desire existing within others, I wanted to change my worldview partly because it did not represent what I and others currently desire. Another reason I changed my initial worldview was that it was not complete. We can only look back extensively on our lives once we have grown older, into the age of 30 and onwards. Our teen years and the years of our 20s are filled with life-altering choices, like deciding to go to college or entering the workforce after high school, that will shape what careers, beliefs, and worldviews we adopt. While within this stage of life where we are still making these decisions and have not yet felt all the effects of our decisions, we cannot critically look back on what our successes and failures were, and what short-term and long-term effects they caused. Due to this flaw of my view, I wanted to think of another view on meaning that I can contemplate before I mature into the age of 30, and a view that I can observe through other means, like with the above image.
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Therefore, one view that arose out of my contemplation was that we find meaning through voicing ourselves to the world. To communicate this view, I want to use the image to begin explaining how we get to voice ourselves to the world and why we want to do it, especially before we move on to the songs on the next page and discuss further.
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To explain how we get to voicing ourselves, I will introduce some traits, using the image, that get us to voice ourselves to the world. The first trait is confidence, which means you are comfortable with yourself and with what you pursue. The woman in the image first exudes confidence as she stands up straight. By standing up straight, we make ourselves more visible to others because we demand attention in order to voice ourselves to others. The opposite of this would be slouching and putting our head down to make ourselves less visible and express that we do not want attention and do not care to voice ourselves to the world. Also, the woman wears a tattered, unbuttoned shirt and no pants. This is meant to show that by not caring too much about your clothes or how others perceive your attire, you can continue to remain confident. By remaining confident, one can adopt another trait associated with how to voice yourself, which is making great efforts. This characteristic entails that an individual takes action to reach what they are pursuing, despite the difficulties and opponents they may face along the way. The woman in the image expresses this as she does not just stand straight but balances herself on the tips of her toes and tilts her head far back behind her head. When we do stand on our toes, we usually do it only to apply extra effort towards getting what we desire, whether it be reaching a cereal box on the high shelf at the grocery store or giving and receiving a kiss with a taller significant other. By bending one's head back, this is done to make an extra effort to release something we desire, like a gasp, reaching the right pitch when singing, or saying something aloud so many people will give us their attention. Overall, how one gets to voice themselves is by being confident, like through standing straight and not worrying about minuscule details in appearance, and making great efforts, like enduring pain to stand on the tips of your toes and appear more visible, and tilting your head back to command more attention to yourself.
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Now that we know how we get to voicing ourselves, why is it that we want to voice ourselves to the world? The answer is that we are trying to find a meaning to our life. This is demonstrated in the image as the woman tilts her head, opening her mouth to voice herself, and does so in the light. She angles herself in the light because she is hoping that voicing herself in the light this time will expose her to the meaning of her life. The light represents that moment when meaning is discovered, when what we need to do in life seems so clear and obvious to us. We no longer have to reside our minds in contemplation, or in the dark, as seen in the image. When we no longer have to contemplate, we can stop wandering from place to place, job to job, and person to person in order to see where an answer may lie. By acting confident and making great efforts to voice ourselves to the world, we believe that we will position ourselves into the light and discover the meaning of our life.
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After explaining aspects of my view on meaning, I still had some questions for myself: How do we get into the mindset of wanting to pursue confidence, make great efforts, and ultimately voice ourselves to the world? Is there a more unique reason behind why we want to voice ourselves? These questions forced me to dive further into my mind and pull out explanations or aspects that more strongly correlate with and strengthen the perception of my worldview. So, in order to see how I attempted to deepen my understanding of my worldview, let us now move on to listening to two songs on the next page.
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(Before moving on, you might want to consider some things I did not initially notice and point out in the image: Why is there a square of light that has passed the woman on her left and another one approaching her from the right? Could this be another attempt from the woman to position herself in the light and attain her meaning? How many times has this cycle of voicing herself to find meaning been repeated for the woman? Pondering these questions might help transition your mind to listening to the first song.)
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