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 | See the world with different eyes! ? |
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Does our world only consist of misery, pain and suffering? Daily newspapers are full with announcements of crisis, political disputes and religious fights. Politicians are planning the next step to bring our world closer to the abyss. Negotiations are following negotiations and the outcome seems to be zero. Pictures are showing people suffering from hunger, injuries or despair. Photography exhibitions like the “World Press Photo” that is currently displayed at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam include many pictures dealing with war, depicting humans with from affliction distorted faces, tears running from eyes and children starving to death. We see military rifling houses of unknown people in countries far away from their own home. Shootings, blood and crime seems to be order of the day. Is that what we want to see? I know humans are eager to watch misery; they are thirsty for events no matter how ugly and bloody they might be, just to make their life look a bit less miserable. Or why are people always stopping at an accident to have a glimpse at the scene of “crime”?
But even in daily life of West Europeans, the smile has vanished and was replaced by unhappiness and despair. If you spend a smile to see the world with different eyes and also to make somebody else smile, you rarely get something back. Hollow eyes are looking at you, petrified! Somebody else’s look seems to create a tense reaction immediately. Do we have to see everybody as a rival? Is a smile something we have to hide or at last even prevent in order to protect ourselves? Is that where we are heading? Is this what is left over from the cohabitation of the human race? If yes, then good night mon ami! Would it not be nicer to see something else? Blossoming gardens, children playing and people laughing from the bottom of their heart?
I have been talking to different people and most of them had the same impression of current human behaviour. So, I thought, I should start smiling at people as an experiment and see how they are reacting. Some of them indeed smile back immediately; others look at you suspiciously and only after some seconds decide that there is no harm to send a smile back. But there are also others who seem to wallow in their frustration without seeing the world around them. As I mentioned before hollow eyes look at you and you are far away from getting some nice reaction back. I have been to another art exhibition of Lise Sarfati. Her exhibition “La vie nouvelle“ in the foam Photography museum in Amsterdam, is depicting youths in their natural environment. None of them is smiling or expressing a moment of happiness or satisfaction. Again I had the impression that people are not and cannot be happy anymore. Maybe I misunderstood the pictures but for me they only strengthen my impression of human dissatisfaction. How can you go on trying to see the world differently?
How about smiling at yourself in the mirror, as a friend of mine once suggested. At least somebody is smiling back at you.
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