One pic, one word, one week

We hear over and over that the #1 most popular fear in the developed world, after Death, is Public Speaking. I'm a singer, and in 15 years of auditions, competitions, and opening nights, I've learned that it's not being onstage that requires bravery. The biggest challenge is beating the fear that hits you when you're ABOUT to go onstage. Once you're out in the spotlight, the bright stage lights hide the audience from your view so that you're acting or singing for sparkling light, not for a judging audience. The terror is in those few moments before you walk out onstage, because in the shadows of the wings, you can see every bored, unimpressed face out in the audience.

The beautiful teenage actress at the left of the photo is next to audition, and while her peer is onstage dazzling the judges with his skills, she has to listen to him shine and feel her heart beat and her memorized speech vaporize. When he finishes speaking and it's her moment to soar or crash, the real bravery is in taking those last five steps out into the spotlight instead of giving up and going home.

I hope that in our lives, we always find the strength and bravery to take those last few steps out into the spotlight and discover just what we're capable of accomplishing.

Nothing is eternal but (I believe that) ideas are. That's what I came up with. I don't know why but an idea is always represented as a lightbulb... as for the mirror effect, seems like "eternal" means something that doesn't have a beginning nor and end, something that is infinitely repeated... thus the mirror effect...

Considering that the average human can expect to live 67.2 years (or 78.3 years in the United States), it's interesting that we even developed the concept of the "eternal." We know that even the things that existed before us and will outlive us, like plastic, water, and major landforms, are still not eternal and will eventually be returned to their component parts by decomposition, erosion, or the collapse of our galaxy. Most people, therefore, associate eternity with a religious afterlife, omnipotent creator/maintainer, or the life cycle of the known universe. 

This photo creates an interplay of these three definitions of "eternal." A human being experiences life through linear time, and events and durations during our lives are measured against the span of life lived "so far," which is the closest to eternity that we have personally experienced, and therefore the human is depicted in the foreground of the photo. In the midground, a church represents our association of eternity with a divine higher power that is timeless, but also highly subjective. In the background, Lake Superior represents the eternity of the natural world. The rocks that border the lake were formed in the very early history of Earth when magma was forced to the surface, creating the Canadian Shield. The familiar shape of the lake emerged 10,000 years ago when the glacier retreated. Even the billions of years that these rocks have existed and will exist, though almost unimaginable to a human, are not yet "eternity;" they are eternal only with respect to the life cycle of the Earth.

I believe that the perspective provided by these three interpretations of "eternal" invites us to contemplate the relative importance of events and choices in our lives and the impact they could have on those things that will outlive us: thought, innovation, preservation of the environment, and posterity.

The first posting is scheduled for Sunday, March 6.