Point Being
Often in illustrations for ads that promote travel, investments, even career ideas, a precipice reaches out and we are given a vast and varied landscape to take in, a friendly horizon that gleams ahead with little view of what might lie below. The point being to give a view that promises without really confounding us with details. For now. And yet, that far reaching vista without the shadow of doubt below is so even handed that the light never fades, the effect of atmospheric perspective isn’t evident. The future or wherever is here is a constant gleam.
Good ad? For what again? The Point of Being doesn’t translate very easily when constricted by a view without contrast and a realm without any space below its gleaming vista. Reads like a politics of promise with a cutout mannequin delivering a prerecorded monologue in monotone.
What are our most familiar arguments that demonstrate for us the point of being? World wide religions offer explanations and the solace or balm that suggests the point of being is in fact elsewhere. Biography and history also explain how the point of being has been enacted over time often with bravados of victories over all kinds of adversities. Who to believe?
What if the point being is that the point of being isn’t so easily located in consensus but rather is an individuated chase scene that is both internal and external. Of course, you’d say that’s the dream realm and we eventually win big time or … But what if this chase through days and years is more unique than our dreams or at least memorable as part of our waking hours? What does the landscape look like then and how do we clock the runner that is us?
Where have we been? What’s next? Can we make sufficient plans and preparations? Or is our point of being the point that represents the present only and everything else is more like the vistas in the ads described above. Walk out along Point Being, look around, and see what kind of vision you might have to answer with. Or just take in what is represented in these paintings and then restart your own stroll along Point Being.