Humanity is a messy, bizarre, enchanting canvas of every imaginable thought put into physical form.
First, nothing but the science.
You are breathing right now. You do nothing to make that happen, yet this most essential of behaviors is happening & keeping you alive. Bravo, body.
You have enough blood in your body to not only keep yourself warm & alive, but you could donate that blood to someone else for their own warmth and life force. Then your body would re-generate that blood so you’d still be full up.
Your eyes are refracting light so that you can see around you. Not only shapes but colors, as well.
Your body runs, jumps, dances, climbs, and can do even more amazing things at your will. Of course, it depends on your determination, discipline and health.
Organs, bones, skin, hair. All amazing.
But to be a masterpiece is significantly more than just being self-sustaining, efficient or a cool piece of machinery, albeit knit of flesh and bones.
A masterpiece is your greatest creation, the culmination of your excellence, a work of art that surpasses ordinary things, surpasses the bounds of time.
A masterpiece is recognized by its outstanding creativity, originality, and the impact it has on those who are given the chance to witness it.
You, my friend,
are a magnum opus.
What other living creature can cry bitterly then gather themself up and face the wild, heartless world just after wiping the tears off their face?
Who else has the ability to grow and change into something entirely different yet remain the essence of themself all the while?
We desire, suffer, and yet still go on. Beyond simply being a masterpiece, we can also recognize and appreciate another masterpiece in the making and love to see them develop.
That is surely a sign of greater awareness than just any old, living thing; we see art for what it is, even as we ourselves are art.
I’m stunned at the thought. I look at myself in the mirror and wonder how on earth did I get so misplaced? I think we all feel somewhat lacking and lost because we are a little lost; a masterpiece is fit for the golden frame, where it is seen. A masterpiece doesn’t have to work to be admired; it just is. And us, slogging through the mundane, difficult, pointless every day struggles, feel somewhere inside ‘don’t I deserve something better than this?’
But so we go on. We experience fleeting flashes of satisfaction and joy when we feel like we’re in the right place, doing the right thing. Then it’s gone, and we feel dull and unremarkable once more. I wonder if it’s not so much us that is drab and unremarkable, as it is the world that dulls our shine, like cobwebs clouding over a gleaming mirror.
Beneath the dust and cobwebs, that mirror still gleams. We just need to brush the dust away.
You are the marble; now carve out the lines and curves that will make who you are. You are already steel, now hammer away until you are shaped into what you want to be.
I am a living, growing work of art. I am the pièce de résistance in my own life. And you are, too.
Written by Becky
Photos by Sophie Gee