The Peace Is Well Worth The Pain

“Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish.” – Joyce Carol Oates

It’s one of my favorite photos.

And it annoys the hell out of me.

I took the photo a couple of years ago at a local park, an overhead view of a snow covered swing seat I noticed in the playground. It’s a black and white image creating a beautiful contrast between the whiteness of the snow and the darkness of the outline of the seat and the chains holding it up. It’s stark, it’s simple, yet each time I look at the photo I wish it was different than it was. The seat is slightly askew, and the two chains rising up from the seat stretching to the edge of the photo are annoyingly asymmetrical. 

Even though the photo is beautiful, I instead look beyond its beauty and focus on the flaws only I can see, leaving me provoked and disturbed in the process.

I’ve never had much success arguing with reality, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. 

Life gives us plenty of opportunities to argue with it, if we choose to, to be provoked and disturbed wishing people, situations, and circumstances were different and more aligned with our vision for what we feel they should be. And while accepting reality can be painful, denying it creates a pain of its own fueled by an unhealthy delusion that what will never be will somehow be. Someday.

My photo will never be any different someday. No matter how good I am wishing it was.

This photo has become an unlikely teacher, its triggering nature an opportunity for me to step back and observe my reaction to seeing it. Am I resisting or accepting the image for what it is as it is?

Moving beyond the photo, looking deeper, are there parts of my life where I am I resisting or accepting what it is as it is?

Accepting can be painful, but the peace found in the clarity is well worth the pain.