The Real Alien

Jeune Fille Andormie was painted by Picasso, and I adopted the painting to compare it with a cave painting to illustrate the direction of painting. The journey is a journey inside. The cave-men were inspired and occupied by mysterious nature. To modern men, the nature is no more a mysterious world, but facts that can be expressed by abstract notations and can be predicted to some extend, and also manipulated. However, the human innerself is still a mystery, particularly the "mind" that doesn't have a physical existence as such, and is really frightening and alien in Freudian perspective. The Freudian perspective of mind was the dominant theme in Picasso's painting. I chose Jeune Fille Endormie because of its soft, graceful and smooth stroke to avoid the crude ones (in nutshell a non-Freudian painting of Picasso). The contrast is obvious and illustrate well the direction of painting: the natural mind of primitive cave painter and the Freudian mind of the a modern artist that tries to communicate an alien self.  

I am sure that everyone has some sort of obsession. I don't shy of telling that I have special obsession for Russian short stories and Korea's historical dramas. It is not that I have developed an obsession because, they are enjoyable to read or watch, but rather I see them as soft extensions of the Machiavelli's "The Prince".  Machiavelli's biggest mistake was his utter honesty in describing the nature of men as he perceived and so he lost the grace of "modesty" to the eyes of those who do not like to see any scar on the holiness of men's nature. In contrast to the Machiavelli, the great Russian writers (short stories) and Korean historical drama writers sugar-coat human nature and make them more palatable.

Today, after a very long time, I read one of the short stories, "The Three Girdles" by Vassily Zhukovsky. As soon as I started reading it, I just stuck to it, and like my early teenage times, I devoured it without any break in between (how silly a hungry soul gets: that is what obsession is, right?). Although, the story is more like a folk story, but it beautifully illustrate (may be better to say unravel) an aspect of human nature: the real alien is self that steals one's connection to nature. One has to read the story to appreciate it but, the part that I like most is when she  (It is a story about Ludmila, a good and content-heated girl who is happy with her ordinary appearance, and ordinary life, but a magical gift changes her) torments herself for losing her natural happiness for the dreams she develops from the magic girdle that transforms her charm and beauty and as a result her self-image. Under influence of her self-image, when she looks down to her original appearance (including magic girdle), she loses her charm and hence her improved self-image. She finally gets back her magic girdle and her charm returns back (a happy ending). OK, let's not forget the best part:

"...What happened to the poor, unfortunate, good-hearted Ludmila? She cried, suffered in despair, longed for her hopeless love. Where was her previous happiness; the previous tranquility of her innocent heart?....."

                ... A content-heart is the best guard that one can have, that is what I got from this story....