Lovis Corinth: Nude Bending Backwards (1919)

" … we've somehow managed to make some headway, anyway."

I'm entertaining the notion that I learned everything Backward. By dint of tenacious good fortune, my education hasn't managed to do me in yet, but that could happen at any moment. I suspect that everything I have accomplished would have been easier to achieve had I just started the right way around, but I didn't. I didn't even suspect another orientation could have existed; I just went about doing whatever I was doing with more or less the same information. I was never all that interested in learning.

Certainly, my manner of living will not long outlast me. I have been no exemplar of how to approach any task. Please do not attempt to follow my lead, for I was never leading. I was more struggling to maintain my anonymity than trying to gain any notoriety. I didn't want or feel I needed any expert overseeing my efforts. I didn't want a coach. I never expected a judge or wanted another's judgment. I didn't aspire to be better than I was.

My meager accomplishments seem more significant given that I might have approached them all Backward. From within my perspective, my world appears the right way around, or if not, I cannot imagine it being very much different than it has been. The perfectly normal blindness that comes with any routine removes the ability even to imagine things differently, let alone approach them uniquely. I suspect we imprint on our approaches to avoid continuing as novices, even if what we settle on amounts to Backward. I suppose this world was never different.

It's not just me! If I'm turned around, I'm in no way a minority. You might be just as mistaken as I might have been and just as tenaciously, too. If I look at you, hoping to see improvement, I will likely receive unintended reinforcement, for we all might have learned our ways Backward. We wonder how we missed what might have been obvious, but we remained oblivious instead. Clueless, except on the odd midsummer morning when the thought might come into our heads that we might have learned everything Backward and that due to the Grace of somebody watching, we've somehow managed to make some headway, anyway. I still wonder where I'm going.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz