“The symphony of Symmetrical Excesses”
I – Trust and Mistrust : Virtues and Debauchery!
Sociology has attached a considerably growing interest in this theme during the recent years. Perhaps , mistrust and trust are not after all exactly two opposites, but actually two functional equivalents, because these two different mind-sets mobilize the same future anticipation with similar objectives of risk reduction. On the one hand, trust reduces reality complexity to a simple variable of uncertainty to engage in action. On the other hand, mistrust breeds suspicion, guile and vigilance to stand against a kind of resistance to the other’s influence. So far, these two dispositions of spirit inspire us a feeling of assurance and security! Trust and mistrust seem to be virtues!
However, a lot of mistrust often leads to slander, too much trust often attracts danger, many people tend towards behavioral execess opposing addiction for the same chakra. It would therefore be necessary and more appropriate to soften the tops of danger and slander and orchestrate a symphony of consciousness integrity between two functional equivalents. The goal is then to balance the attitude of symmetrical excesses leading to two opposite errors, blind trust and mortal suspicion.
That is how I was thrown into a new orchestration, a new clever visual symphony with elaborate compositions. Besides, the name “symphony” was not inspired solely by the new form of writing or the particular style of “sure-realism”, but rather by the complexity level required by any symphonic composition. This symphony will be written and played on the basis of a melodramatic and hybrid dialogue between two instruments of the orchestra, trust and mistrust, it is rather a concerto, which will allow the two soloists to show their virtuosity.
Mixing the two symmetrical excesses should bring about enhancement and not simple trivialization, mixing them is the spirit, “Between too much trust and suspicion excess, we have to reduce the limits towards a happy sobriety “. It is a technique that consists of opposing two contrasting errors so as to draw up a new truth, draw another truth, that of “sure- realism.”
II – THE DERAILING OF TWO FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENTS
“Mistrust often leads to calumny. Too much trust in others ruins many people “
“I could have been a princess, you could have been a king, I could have had a castle and wear a ring, but no, I don’t trust you anymore . I doubt everything, I’m going crazy. From that moment, and for a long time I feel paralyzed, too distrustful. All the confidence in me had been reached giving way to the fear, fear of renewing a failure “. OH! How many stories of love and complicity have a terrible end because of an excess of behavior, either towards unlimited confidence or towards unreasonable mistrust.
-Too much trust attracts danger! -Trust is also a cultural and educational problem. In the past a romantic generation had emerged in England and Germany at the end of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe during the nineteenth century till the 1850s, a movement of poets and writers expressing, essentially, picturesque material and formal fantasy, while painters had also wondrfully expressed the soul and spirit of this literary bohemia, it is the Romantic movement. A culture characterized by a willingness to explore all possibilities of art to express its feelings: it is thus a reaction of feeling against reason, exciting mystery and fantasy and seeking escape and delight in the dream, the morbid and the sublime, the exotic and the past. Ideal or nightmare of a passionate and melancholy sensibility. Its aesthetic and moral values, ideas and new themes soon began to influence human consciousness. The new spirit of the time was thus developed in and by the romanticism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This romanticism got deeply involved into religion, morality, politics and even literature. It had been expressed in different forms, but was essentially conveyed through one thing: the exaltation of the sentimental ego, opening the path to a rise in trust.
Excessive self-confidence is loaded with negative images and a too self- confident person is often qualified and presumed proud or narcissistic. As for overconfidence in the other, it borders on naivety, lack of realism. When this feeling is too prevalent , it can engender danger, cause deep disappointment, great sadness, infinite humiliation, pain and tears of blood! This bitterness is likely to turn into profound hatred!
-Too much mistrust is source of slander ! -Mistrust, with healthy degree of caution, can be both a sign of maturity, a wish to protect, provided in small doses and wisely, it preserves us from many inconveniences. Mistrust can be considered as a survival instinct preventing danger. The proverb says : “Better safe than sorry”.
But when mistrust becomes too suspicious, intrusive to others, whose intentions are interpreted maliciously, it is then source of threat, a birth of paranoid personality, expecting to be duped , which is why the suspicious person feels easily dismissed and rejected. Mistrust and suspicion lead the paranoid to assume that beyond the first appearance there is another bad threatening reality, leading him to intrepid and strict investigation. Every small suspicious detail is magnified and generalized. Mistrust thus breeds a kind of paranoia: the individual goes through a constant suspicion that he would be duped and manipulated. Wherever he is, conspiracy is never far away. Those who suffer from excessive and systematic mistrust are bound to isolation and loneliness, it is a source of calumny. According to psychiatrists, “this social phobia is more common in people having hypersensitive disposition”. Being vulnerable and fragile, they use mistrust as a mechanism for protection and defense.
-Visual language of anxiety
In 1907 Wilhelm Worringer had published in Munich a work, Abstraktion und Einfühlung (Abstraction and Empathy), in which he defined the concept of “Einfühlung” associated with art: a state of mind dominated by anxiety , Which is reflected, in the field of art, by a tendency to abstraction. Today, thanks to the forms of abstract expressionism, the American art, which had literally boomed throughout post-war society in New York, presenting these themes has become associated with combining emotional intensity and the expression of an inner world in which color takes on its full meaning.
However, Norwegian Edvard Munch, the forerunner of an oppressive expressionism, dominated by a psychological tension brought to its climax, had wonderfully expressed at the end of the 19th century anxiety, human pain and drama of betrayal through canvases such as Jealousy, Melancholy, Scream and Anxiety.
Sjalusi [Jealousy], 1907 .Oil on canvas, 89 x 82,5 cm
In 1973, The expressionist painter and writer Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980 , Austria) , painted the anguish of man before the woman. The Prometheus triptych is his most famous work.
III – CONCERTO FOR TWO BALANCED EXCESS: “A deadly symphony.”
This symphony sums up the meeting between the symmetrical excess of two virtues, confidence and mistrust, it is a concerto between two functional equivalents, two instruments playing two opposite errors and which are likely to distort everyday life, replace love by disgust and hatred, to transform life into a real hell!
It is a cursed, deadly symphony, the expression of an encounter between the too suspicious and the too confident. The first with his threatening and angular look, could not avoid a permanent anxiety, signs of insecurity and ambiguity are displayed on his face in stunning dexterity, his right arm holding the bow with an astounding threat , dogged by excessive caution, maddened and inflamed by excessive skepticism, he threw himself into an infinite search for proofs of abuse, malice, manipulation, or lies. The second, oppressed by breach of trust, with pale and tense face, tears in her eyes and visual disturbances, she feels abandoned, intimidated by her dream of exoticism and human idealism, betrayed by her passionate and melancholic sensitivity , she is desperate and unable to let her emotions go off, deceived by her own convictions and her bohemian spirit, she is dumbfounded, weakened, and imprisoned in her vulnerable romantic shell.
This painting is the concerto of deep inner misfortune caused by an intemperate mindset.
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– THE SYMPHONY OF LOVE « THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE »
– ON THE ARTIST AND POLITICS
-THE SPIRITUAL SYMPHONY
-THE SYMPHONY OF THE MYSTERIOUS GREENBACK