Round table and haunted heart

This morning I decided that every working day at home, I will work sitting on a different chair around my round dining table. 4 chairs, 4 options. Changing scenery might be too much said, but changing perspective is a fact. It’s the art of little things again. This one made me smile and I guess the colleagues in the first online meeting of the day didn’t believe me. Now it’s written so it becomes a fact.

Getting distance makes me see better what’s close. Plato thought that art is immoral but fellow Greek, Aristotle, (384-322 BC) didn’t judge in the same way. He reflected art and deep dived into how art can mirror emotions, pleasure and pain. Art is often fiction, maybe therefore it’s easier to fantasize or emerge my underlying and even subconscious emotions. Sometimes disgust transforms into respect that it touched me that way – more often I anyhow feel like time traveling or escaping into unknown lands. I guess these are the signs of catharsis as it was understood by Aristotle. Feelings of sympathy and empathy when thinking of being in the situation of the movie character or figure in an Egon Schiele painting– twisted and in pain. But so appealing and beautiful. Aren’t we in a situation currently on this planet, where empathy and compassion should again be our first priorities…

I had a moment with a venetian glass carafe today in my reading corner. The green beauty is from my grandfather’s sister who traveled on her own throughout Europe and Asia in 1950s. I wondered how it was to be single those days. Was the feeling of being on your own the same, even if the world was a different place. All that came to my mind by just looking at the carafe and the painted gondolas in it. When writing this article I’m looking at the ‘skyline’ of the small things on the side table in the reading corner, one of them being the carafe. I think the reason I like the set of things on that table is because they are so different from one another, in material, shape, age and purpose. So are we humans. That makes us interesting to one another – the differences.

Tonight Renée Fleming sings at my place – that’s were the Haunted Heart comes from. I believe her when she voices that ‘dreams repeat a sweet but lonely song to me’. But still her singing hits me more than the lyrics – sentiment and deepness of intensity in the voice. Purple and black are the colors in that album for me.

Live, love and laugh. Until next time.

Yours,

Mikko - 'the Finnish icebreaker'