Why Am I Here

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
— Henry Ward Beecher

From a young age I can remember wondering where I came from. Oh the physical part I know all about. The mechanics of the biology are easily put to words.

No, that isn’t what a young Daniel used to daydream and wonder about. Where did “me” come from? How long was I here for? What was I hear for? Why was I here?

These thoughts kept churning through my mind even before starting grade school.

Even though I was raised under a strict Pentecostal, fire and brimstone doctrine, at a very young age something about it seemed amiss. If all the love why the eternal damnation if I erred? It made no sense to me. What was I missing?

Questions, so many questions and so many years later those questions still remain with me into my sixties.

As I often do I go to Youtube to find something interesting to listen to and then do a similar query for reading material. It’s always amazing where I end up whether it be luck or preordained I don’t know.

The music ended up being Tibetan healing and meditation sounds. The reading landed me onto a page of quotes about creativity and the soul. I think that I got down to the fourth or fifth one and it hit me like a brick in the face. “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” As I read it, it answered at least one of my many questions, where does this all come from?

Why do I feel a need to create something abstract? Why do you? How is it that my dog is content to go for walks, eat, sleep, be comforted and cuddled but not create?

When I decided to write on this topic I started going through some of this summers unposted photos and the one above of the cemetery seemed to resonate within me.

We are all here for a brief moment in time. I know all too well from the loss of my little brother a couple of months ago who little time we have and how we take for granted too often the time that we have here.

When we leave this earth like my little bro did what will remain of us? For all the years he walked the planet what remains of him now? Memories? Relationships? Love?

I have come to realize that our time here is limited. We forget that too often and like my dog go no where very fast chasing our tails so to speak. What should we/I be doing?

In one hundred years I hope that someone might see one of my photographs and see a little bit of me.

In one hundred years those that I know will also be gone. None will remember me.

What will be left of us? Is it important?

I don’t know. All I have are questions.

Happy shooting,

Dan

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~ by Dan Jurak on August 14, 2016.