how do you paint yourself?

I suppose the material for this blog was originally woven from the blog of another, Stephen Christian of Anberlin, although at the time I had no idea that my passing thoughts would be of any use to me.

Stephen recently posted a few paintings by Austrian artist Egon Schiele (see them here), self-portraits that, upon first glance, may very well make you cringe. As I peered at this man's awkward facial structure and dirty complexion of which the shadowing seemed to have no rhyme or reason, I couldn't help but succumb my reflexes to a negative first reaction. With a slight wrinkling of the nose, I thought, "Ouch...that's ugly. Why did he paint himself as a mutant of sorts?"

Then, as I often do after spending a moment doing something like viewing a piece of art, I went on with my day and forgot about the paintings, dismissing my personal thoughts about them as trivial and relatively worthless. After all, unless by "art" the topic of discussion at hand includes the use of words or clever references to literature or perhaps even a challenge to create new forms of onomatopoeia, it has been concluded that I have no skill or understanding whatsoever (which I have humbly accepted), and therefore have no right to analyze, critisize, or otherwise formulate an opinion about it. To venture to do so would surely result in nothing less than travesty on some level, and I am not in the business of committing such crimes.

Fast forward several hours later, as I'm sitting in my room pondering the meaning of my existence and once again rehashing all the not-so-favorable moments of my life and the somewhat muddy aspects of my personality. I've never been one to consider what people are thinking of me, which, as we all know, can be both a good thing and a bad thing. But lately the temptation to act a certain way or speak with a certain refrain simply because I'm in the presence of a particular kind of person has been creeping up on me without the slightest bit of warning.

I hate this.

I began to wonder what causes people to suffer in that emotional state of discomfort, where a whisper of a suggestion, either verbal or physical, can take us by such force that we are instantly inclined to betray ourselves and appease our adversaries. Is the need to be accepted truly so great that we will twist our thoughts and modify our identities to gain it? And since when did acceptance become something we must earn?

My heart goes out to those who never really feel as though they fit in anywhere. And I despise that term, by the way - "fit in," "fit the bill," "fit the mold." What exactly is "the mold," and who decides what fits in it? Everyone is completely and irrevocably different, and not because of some freak genetic accident! We all have a place in this world, but we cannot allow others to tell us where our place is. We cannot allow anyone to put us in a box and label us as they choose. No, instead, we must stay in motion, continually seeking and learning and giving. For I do not believe that our place is any one place at all, but an endless string of places, each equally if not more important than the last.

I recently completed one of the most thought-provoking and shameless books I've ever come across called Veronika Decides to Die, which also happens to be a Stephen Christian recommendation. I'll spare you its summary, which you can (and should, followed by a purchase) read at amazon.com, but consider this: You are living in an insane asylum. You can talk to yourself all day long, or perhaps to an imaginary friend; heck, you can even share your troubles with a hairbrush without receiving so much as a raised eyebrow because, after all, you are crazy. You can eat odd meals at odd hours, laugh for no reason at all, listen to music from morning to night and wear black from head to toe, and all of this is perfectly acceptable.

What if life were that simple? What must it feel like to be so free, so comfortable, so fearless? In Veronika, one woman named Zedka describes how she plans on living her life after she leaves Villette, an insane asylum in Slovenia:

"When I came here, I was deeply depressed. Now I'm proud to say I'm insane. Outside I'll behave exactly like everyone else. I'll go shopping at the supermarket, I'll exchange trivialities with my friends, I'll waste precious time watching television. But I know that my soul is free and that I can dream and talk with other worlds that, before I came here, I didn't even imagine existed.

I'm going to allow myself to do a few foolish things, just so that people can say, "She's just been released from Villette." But I know that my soul is complete, because my life has meaning. I'll be able to look at a sunset and know that God is behind it. When someone irritates me, I'll tell them what I think of them, and I won't worry what they think of me, because everyone will say, "She's just been released from Villette."

I'll look men in the street, right in their eyes, and I won't feel guilty about being desired. But immediately after that, I'll go into a shop selling imported goods, buy the best wines my money can buy, and I'll drink that wine with the husband I adore because I want to laugh with him again.

And laughing, he'll say, "You're crazy!" And I'll say, "Of course I am, I was in Villette, remember! And madness freed me. Now, my dear husband, you must have a vacation every year, and make me climb some dangerous mountains, because I need to run the risk of being alive.""

So there I was, sitting on my bed, remembering this passage and knowing how this ever-pressing need to be "accepted" in society angers me, and my mind suddenly goes back to Egon Schiele.

I don't paint myself in a bad light, I thought to myself, but I don't paint myself in a good light at all, either. I just paint. And if the end result (which is never really the end result, because I am - as we all should be - forever painting) brings happiness to others, then great. But if it turns out that who I am, which I must remember is irrevocably different and perfectly messy, is not appealing to others, then so what? So what? My aim is never to be approved or infallible. My aim is to appreciate my uniqueness, to live life to the fullest and to the best of my ability. And only by God's grace will I be rescued from my shortcomings - not by the scrutiny or branding of society.

Egon Schiele did not paint a pretty self-portrait. But what I saw over the course of haphazard timing is that his portrait is also far from ugly. And I have decided - in lieu of my short time in Villette, allowing myself an opinion regardless of the risk of travesty - that if he had painted his portrait with realism, I would not be able to respect him half as much as I do now. Because painting a person realistically only reveals what they look like on the outside, and gives no indication of what kind of person they actually are. Of course, looking at Egon's painting will not tell me if he was a light or heavy sleeper, what he preferred to eat for breakfast, or if he performed well in school (and the truth is that none of that really matters anyway). What it does tell me is that Egon was - like me - neither approved nor infallible, and also - like me - that he was an irrevocably different and perfectly messy human being.

We all screw up. We all possess characteristic oddities. We all are flawed. This should set us wholly, brazenly and eternally free.