the scribble
i always viewed life as an upward sloping line that goes along a sort of staircase. each step is something that happens within one’s life, measured by the time of which it occurred. some steps can occur simultaneously, but for the most part, you cannot promote to the next without fully completing the previous. each step awaited the one previous and carried all that it was with them upward. the only unique feature is to be found in the slope’s rate of increase for each person. the most ideal life following a steady formula of y=x, of course.
… how naive
though, for the sake of exploration,
in its simplest form, it went: primary education. undergrad/love. grad school. career. marriage. family. retire. i present it in a state of reduction, but don’t let the simplicity fool you. there were ample details to be found within each step, molding to whomever i was at the time. the goals and dreams i had within each were complex beyond description. i actually really like the idea of this depiction. it was comforting.
everything will work out, because it is Designed to work out.
it has to work out for the line to keep performing in its steady flowing, upward sloping nature.
this idea of life was inspired by the ever-prevalent timeline.
timelines are zero-sloping lines that captivate every important instance in an individual, organization, or movement’s lifetime. it’s interesting though, because rarely ever is it actually authored by the subject. if life is one’s own, are these truly accurate depictions of their lifetimes?
is life defined strictly by those important moments?
is all that a life Is held within these strict bounds of time?
it’s saddening, almost- the idea of a timeline.
that somehow this line, with no character, no movement other than forward, holds all that someone or something is.
everything of value
nothing more than a point in time.
another depiction of our lines of life circulated on Twitter about a year or so ago. it defined one’s life by the relationships they kept. it was beautiful and poignant, i find my mind wandering to it every so often. i only wish i could find it in the layers of viral medias since. though, it still represents life as a line. a consistent, steady flowing, entity. looking at the lines used in this depiction, you can see that they also rely on the same measurement of time as the upward slope and the timeline. this is a common western idea. however, the most foundational view of time, relies on another set of ideology.
contorting a line into a shape, we have the
circle of life.
the circle of life follows that we are all connected, taking a journey together.
what happens will happen again.
what comes will come again.
what leaves will leave again.
death leads to life and life leads to death.
a loose example of this ideology is found within buddhism. i could never do justice of the complexities of this belief system, however, a brief summary is as followed.
buddhism is founded upon the four noble truths: life is inevitably suffering, there is a reason for suffering, suffering has an end, and there is a cause to the end. suffering occurs in a cycle of reincarnation, dependent upon the karma of the experienced lifetime(s). reincarnation brings in this idea of the circle, life acting in cycles. reincarnation is accompanied with a deep appreciation of the opportunity of humanness. through humanness is the exploration of spirituality, which can bring about the only escape from the endless cycle- the noble eightfold path. leading to nirvana.1
it’s thought provoking, blunt, and beautiful.
circles of life, looping together, with branchings off to ends.
i truly implore all to do research on buddhism in the name of cultural appreciation.
there is a westernized view of the line as a circle as well,
“full circle.”
however, this idea represents a moment, rather than a lifetime. it lies in The Return. the return encapsulates opportunity, closure, or the simultaneous experience of them both. everything comes full circle,
even if it’s because you make it that way.
each, in their own way,
functional and beautiful.
however, the fatal flaw i find in each is the consistent nature. the way that it leads one to believe life flows in this steady way of path.
as if life were a creek, rather than a raging ocean.
but, what then, can encapsulate this life for all that it is?
all of the experiences, emotions, twists, and turns?
the scribble.
to scribble is to write in a hurried carelessness. this brings forth a connotation that i’m not particularly fond of. this definition seems unfair to the Act of scribbling. why people do it. how no two will ever look the same. how quickly it changes. how many different things you can see within it. the childlike curiosity it exudes.
taking all of this into consideration,
using the scribble didn’t quite settle well with me.
well, the nature of life doesn’t quite settle well with me either, now does it?
and thus, the more i thought about what a scribble Truly Is, rather than what the definition reduces it to, i can find no better way to captivate life.
as such, all previous assumptions are to be left at the door!
we are abandoning the true definition of the word, throwing it out the window and down the hatch! forget what it Appears to be, let’s delve into all that it IS!
the scribble moves in the realm of the unknown.
the illustrator barely knows what will even happen next, the pen takes over and launches onto the page. as we are the engineers of our lives, there is a realm of the unknown that has a certain level of control. this includes the exterior aspects: your relationships with others, rules, laws, expectations, your location in space and time, and so on and so forth.
the scribble, like the line, has pieces of consistency. Pieces, Moments, Periods, Seasons, Months, Years. this can reflect the content of our lives, or maybe a plateau. when we are simply being, perhaps stagnant. these are moments to cherish nonetheless, because
There Is Something to be found within the mundane,
even if it is merely a sense of comfort. but that’s no place to stay, because then the scribble
shoots.
perhaps downward, making you face all that allowed you to be content- all that you were avoiding the experience of, pretending it simply did not exist. the avoided caught up to the scribble and now is reveling in all of the attention you are forced to give. or maybe you find yourself heartbroken.
facing rejection. from a person, idea, school, job, internship.
perhaps, you’re simply depressed. no reason other than the curiosities of the human brain.
you feel so numb, you believe you’ve never been closer to the nothingness of death.
or, with feeling the weight of everything, you’ve never been closer to the way a corpse must feel bearing the weight of the surface.
no matter the specificities, it is going down. the scribble is plummeting. you fear the depths, the abyss of it all. it feels like it will never end. and then,
it crashes.
rock bottom.
the lowest point in the scribble. it can be brief,
it can be excruciating,
it can be prolonged.
it can be once or happen a hundred times.
but, you know what they say about rock bottom
the only place to go is up.
the scribble can slowly climb its way up, remnant of a rollercoaster chugging up the most steep of inclines. though, unlike rollercoasters, there are no tracks to protect the passengers.
it’s just you and the scribble.
so perhaps, there will be some unsteady waves seen. or dips of varying degree.
but it’s still moving.
and that’s the most important part of the scribble- of life- after all,
it keeps moving.
it can also shoot upward.
what you find to be the best news of your life. a promotion you weren’t expecting. a surprise visit from a friend. a burst of motivation in school work. the upward shooting can be a moment or a period. all that matters is it is moving upward.
you are happy and full of exhilaration in anticipation for all that is to come.
there, of course are some things thrown in along the way,
twists and turns and loops.
the twists and turns of your package arriving perhaps one day late. your restaurant of choice being busy. a problem at work. a little argument with someone. when things don’t go right, go left. or when things go left, go right. because, upwards doesn’t always act alone,
it often can’t.
the twists and turns make it More.
my favorite aspect of the scribble are the loops.
these are the full circle moments.
the scribble can loop backwards, forwards, and everything in between. these are moments where something finally makes sense- it all finally clicks:
closure.
perhaps, it finally works out:
pursuit.
perhaps anywhichway brings about:
peace.
it can be with a person, it can be with a dream, it can be with an idea, it can be with yourself. but, i have found, little is ever usually one and done. these loops can occur over and over and over, different every single time.
this would be a fine time to discuss the interaction of the scribbles, i suppose. this loosely follows the same idea behind the lifelines from social media. we each have our own scribble, but there are times where our scribble interacts with another.
a visual:
analog projectors of our early years of elementary schooling. the transparent sheets (overheads), decorated in marker, that you could layer and shine a light beneath to create a whole new image.
i view our scribbles as it relates to human interaction kind of like that, except it knows no bounds of a transparent 8 by 11 inches.
the scribbles, they could get entangled.
they could touch and go in opposite directions.
they could weave into each other for the rest of their times.
they could begin together and slowly drift apart.
they could be found to gravitate towards each other, a string of unknowing coincidences and instances over time drawing the scribbles near.
in space. in time. in state of being.
but is it for a point of intersection and never to meet again?
looping in a series of full circles?
entangling?
or to be from a distance for all of the scribble that remains?
who’s to say?
and i think that’s among the unique and necessary nature of the scribble-
the abstract unknown.
this resonates so deeply with all that life is. the abstract, being in the presentation. there is no hidden meaning or guidance, it acts on its own in its own way.
it couples nicely with the unknown.
because you can convince yourself of control, plan every minute detail of your life, but every act is accompanied with this degree of uncertainty. in fact, the only certainty is the uncertain. as in the words of modest mouse, “we were certainly uncertain. at least, i’m pretty sure i am.”2
thinking about it, we don’t really have control over much of anything do we?
the unique and necessary nature also reflects conflicting ideas of time.
it depicts time as this looping, occurring over each other, up, down, and all around idea.
it Goes Over Each Other.
this contrasts heavily with all that we perceive time as being. how can this be?
well, if we were to view time for what it is rather than what we believe it to be, our measurement of time is nothing more than an abstraction we constructed to help us grapple a grasp on reality. we looked to the stars for answers and built an entire system around our interpretation of what was going on up there. this idea of time is reflected in my most treasured novel. not cat’s cradle, as my tattoo’s inspiration-sake would suggest. no, i’ve read this one at least 13 times over. the pages of my small red and yellow copy burst with margin notes, underlining, and highlights. that’s right,
kurt vonnegut’s slaughterhouse five.
it is his most notable novel, with more than well reason. celebrating its 52cnd anniversary of publication this past week and a finalist in the kurt vonnegut museum and library’s online poll as the best of the best, it is a classic like no other. i could write a book on the book, its implications, how it fits in with his other writings, and the impacts on myself. but the way that it presents time ! there’s one quote that i feel captivates the view of time as explained by the scribble.
an early picture of my personal copy from a couple years ago, perhaps the 5th or 6th read3
i love the idea of the scribble. the more i find myself thinking through it, the more curious infatuation i find. it’s abstract, ever-changing, unexpected, exciting, and looping.
everything life could ever be all jumbled into.
and now, i simply must ask, where will it go next?
oh, how the scribble scribbles.
1“Basics of Buddhism,” PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), accessed April 3, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/edens/thailand/buddhism.htm.
2Modest Mouse. “Missed the Boat.” track #6 on We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, Epic Records, 2007.
3Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (New York City, NY: Dell Publishing, 1969).
