Trask Avenue

Note: This was written last year as part of a Big Project held by the terrific folks over at Utata. The premise was to write an essay describing where you lived. You could approach this broad topic anyway you desired. The essay had to be accompanied by three to six original photos which supported the words. I wrote a five part essay. Here’s part one.

creative logician

Creative Logician
Where do I live? I live in a self-contained world of opposing forces.

When involved in anything mathematical my brain switches to automatic pilot. Whether it’s a simple act like balancing my checkbook or a more complicated one like developing multi-functional, inter-dependent spreadsheets brimming with complex formulas, the moment inevitably comes when my actions become rote. I’m making decisions, weighing options and doing all the things required for accuracy, but feel as if I’m not really there.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve always grasped mathematical concepts fairly effortlessly. Algebraic equations, probability rules and statistical theorems purr in my head like a finely tuned engine. You see, a certain symmetry exists to it all, a well-mannered sense of order and predictability. Not only is the answer always within reach, it’s the precise answer. Math is anchored in a realm of established rules and procedures. It’s real, logical and, God help me, bores the socks off my feet.

Art and creation…now that ain’t no math test. Writing plunges into the bubbling whirlpool of the human experience. Photography and other visual arts do the same, if on a more immediate and urgent level. However rendered, art is boundless. It can potentially reshape our perception of everything. How staggering is that! It also severely derails my bedrock need for systematic progression.

All my life numbers have offered the easy route, the brightly lit superhighway. Conversely, creating something from the wisp of an idea is a fragile road obscured by darkness, fraught with hairpin turns and crammed with unknown dangers. At every intersection my brain, with its enormous powers of persuasion, relentlessly steers me towards the superhighway while my soul gently points in the opposite direction, down the unpaved path, whispering the sultry truth: the struggle to create, exhausting in its variables, disconcerting in its randomness, and counterintuitive to the way I’m wired – engages, and ultimately, exhilarates me.