Negative Space
2026-10-05
All art is a cry to God.
I've had this idea regarding an art concept known as negative space. In visual art, it's the space around the image's subject. Much of the time in art, we criticize the subject, yet there's hardly any discourse surrounding the other stuff. But it's about what isn't there. When we think about negative space, regardless of medium, that's where we find God. I think about the days I don't write and find that those breaks act as this project's negative space. When not writing, I am crying out to God. Whether things are peaceful or not, my heart constantly aches for grace. What a sad place to be, but the twisted irony is that in that suffering, there is a path carved ahead in joy. Endure, but do so with joy. I write because I have to, and though I find little joy in this process, I do see its value: to carve into the hearts of those I will never meet. While there's trepidation in that responsibility, I know that this act is something timeless and inconceivably important, grandiosity be damned.
Yet I question my own efforts in this act of endurance. Am I doomed to repeat the same mistakes, or stay stagnant in this one-sided discourse? My cure for this has always been unfiltered honesty—even when I make mistakes, it helps me catch them and work my way through them, regardless of whatever follies I can't always see. Truthfully, stupid people piss me off, and so I act tactlessly as a means to appease a perpetual state of boredom. Life feels like a slow, agonizing burn. Others' motivations—validation, status, security—perplex me and make me question my own sanity; a race to the bottom makes no sense to me. I have no reason to want for much, yet everything still feels pointless and bereft. Perhaps I'm cynical, but I have little energy to participate in things, especially as I've gotten older. The lust for life feels languid, like it's melting. Maybe I'm drowning. Maybe I can swim. Maybe I'll sink.
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