this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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What's bizarre is the smile of the guy at the wheel. I mean I get it but it's still surreal.
What's bizarre is that your focus snapped to the body language and emotions of this sketched character instead of the main idea of the comic. I don't mean to be judgmental at all, it's just an observation and an interest of mine. Can you tell me a bit more about your flow of consciousness when you first looked at the image?
First thing I see is face and then unhappy and happy states?, feel it kinda though not exactly. I look at the smile and I somewhat feel it too.
When I look at a picture of a smile I get a brief glimpse of my happy moments in life. I can feel the green grass and trees and family for a split second. Then this happy conflicts with the realisation of the message of the image which gives it surreal quality of being happy and horrible at the same time.
Which is accentuated further by the happy being not just some usual happy human but an idealised character from cartoon in a way that I associate with positivity and pureness.
Then I try to frame this guy in a bad light semi subconsciously. He voted for Trump
Neat. It's like your mind sees a lot of emotional subtext when that meaning is not necessarily there, at least in a comic. I'm sure you look at things in life in the same way, except your point of view is much more useful and practical there, given that subtext is king in reality.
There should be some type of new art form or art genre that seeks to replicate this juxtaposition of happiness and environment, which creates feelings of the surreal.
I sometimes wonder how pure and positive cartoon characters would react to our world. What would be their daily routine?
I see what you mean about framing given the context. Mental health is too important to waste it worrying about things mostly out of our control. Maybe comic guy is just trying to take a day off from frowning? Haha
Little side excerpt here: I've been meeting a lot more people like you lately. People that connect highly emotionally with media content (you), and also react highly emotionally with other people (in the case of the people I know). This is in stark contrast to myself and other people I know who are jaded to this type of experience and only seem to "feel" stuff in an indirect way, or a culturally coded way in order to protect their mind from potential trauma. I believe that's called an avoidant personality or something. Reading your original comment just helps me to open my mind to new ways of being and experiencing when all I'm used to is what I've already encoded in my behavior from others. Anyway, thanks for the insight!
Edit: went too deep than is socially acceptable.
It’s weird but I swear I was more like you a month ago. Not sure what changed but something unlocked from psychedelics maybe.
I had this really long period of trying to tell what’s wrong with me and then very lately I feel comfort and no questions, calm. It’s me.
I also quit Reddit hm, and use Lemmy with no scores to curb addiction
Hmm, psychedelics are truly mysterious. I find that they can lead to some permanent "more abstract thinking" than usual. I read this article once that attempted to answer the question of why early psychedelic proponents and researchers were so "weird" as the article put it. Have you read it? I'm glad you feel different. I feel like I'm in a transition phase (hopefully).