The Face I See

I am a self-proclaimed strange person, this is according to my own observations of others observations of myself; yes, I agree mostly with this sentiment. Now here is where I divulge too much as usual. It is hard for me to focus sometimes, most of the time; my mind wanders and most of the time in too many directions all at the same time. It is a strange world that I have existed in for a long time. There are times I am able to focus on specific things, task, or thoughts for short periods. Those moments are fleeting and before I know it, they’re gone. I am easily distracted by the smallest stimulus that makes me take off like a rocket on some tangent. I seriously need a quiet room with bare walls and it might need to be padded. Don’t take me up on that last part.

One example of my strangeness, I see faces and figures in unusual places. This happens everywhere I go. I see them in the grain of wood, in wall paper patterns and other mundane things. I can just be looking at them without any intent of making a connection and it happens, I see a face that can be familiar or not, sometimes it relates to nothing but it makes sense. The more I stare, the more detail appears and a real life image of someone or something is there before me. And of course the next thing I do is imagine who they are, what their story is, or how they would fit perfectly into something I’m already working on. Some I can return to and see over and over, some come and go, lost forever to my imagination and I wonder how I ever saw them.

I have a complex understanding in my mind of everything around me, basically I understand that there is much we don’t understand even though we try; we assign meanings to everything, explanations to help us perceive what we see even if it’s completely wrong. We desperately need to know that everything fits neatly into a simple idea. I realize this is a fool’s desire; even it makes everything around me more uncertain. I have often wondered if I see a face in the grain of a piece of wood, is it a soul of someone who has come and gone. There are other fantastical ideas I’ve thought of, but I also understand that my brain may be making connections in patterns with no meaning, pure coincidence.

I imagine they are my adult imaginary friends. I take comfort in knowing that if you actually think you’re crazy, you probably aren’t crazy; hopefully. I am pretty certain I am not the only one who does this, maybe everyone does, if you don’t, try it out and see just how crazy you might be. I plan on taking advantage of this at some point in a creative way that makes sense. I hope to start cataloging the faces I see and maybe something will come of it. If my plans go as planned, 2016 will be an intensely creative year for me and I hope my quirkiness, like these faces, will help me reach my maximum potential for crazy. There is a fine line between genius and crazy, I am neither, but I will try to get as close to each of these as I can.