"New York, New Yooooork!!"

• Something big: Blast from the past

Just a couple weeks ago, I had a ten-year-old ask me for a summary of the lessons I've learned in my life. I was baffled for a few seconds, but soon found my footing with some solid truths such as "try to love everyone, no matter who they are." Later, I was just thinking about how someone can even pretend to fit twenty-two years of literally constant experience into a few comments, or forty years, or ninety years. Then I thought about history books, where decades of billions of lives' worth of experience are crammed into a few sentences, and I still struggle trying to learn how to navigate a simple friendship.

• Something broken: How can I trust anyone? 

At one point during a job I had in the summer, I was handling small boxes of merchandise worth about $20,000 a box, and I was alone in a very low-security area close to where I had my backpack. It was also the sort of situation where they wouldn't have even realized it was missing till weeks after I'd already left the state. It suddenly fell upon me just how much implicit trust my boss had in me just by giving me the job--how could anyone sanely trust that much? Sometimes circumstances are just too tempting for crime or betrayal. But then again, the world would fall apart completely without it.

• Something artistic or man-made: "New York, New Yooooork!!"

I had the opportunity to work this year in New York City at the US Open Tennis Championships. I was put up by my employer in a hotel in midtown Manhattan, and from the window of my hotel room, I could see an endless line of cars framed by endless towers. I'd think, people are so incredible! But then at work, I'd be dealing face to face with these tennis players who are worldwide celebrities, and honestly? They seemed exactly like normal people. People can be so deep, so creative, so powerful, and so incredible, and yet those whom I supposed to be the vanguard of such qualities seemed so mundane in person.

• Something mysterious: Personality tests--how much accuracy is freaky?

Recently, I spent an inordinately large amount of time on the phone with a friend. How long, you ask? Nine whole hours. Why, you ask? Because we made the fatal mistake of taking the Meyers-Briggs personality test. I've tried other tests before, and to be honest, they seemed more like shotty horoscopes than insightful psychology exercises. I've always felt very independent and in control of my life, but this test made me extremely uncomfortable because it seemed to peer into my motivations and my methods with eerie veracity. But this made me ask, am I even in control at all??

Her Portrait, Their Palace

The Baroque era is known for its “emotional richness and technical complexity.”  This was largely manifest in the ostentatious architecture of this period as opposed to a simple structure.  It was dramatic, theatrical, and elaborate effects and decorations.  For example, look at the architecture of the Blenheim palace in England.

Blenheim Palace

The size is intimidating, and the stone work adds to the intensity of the architecture.  Vaulted ceilings, impressive murals, and intricate detail, and grand staircases are a few of the features that typified the baroque architecture in the Blenheim palace.

sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

In my Spanish literature class we studied a poem by sor Juana Inés de la Cruz that she wrote during the Baroque era.  She was born out of wedlock in Mexico and later became a nun.  Much of her efforts were geared toward prejudice against women and minorities.  Her poem, “A Su Retrato” (or “To Her Portrait”) is about how a beautiful and impressive portrait of a woman is a disillusionment of the what’s really underneath the what appears on the surface.  Flattery has sought to hide the wrinkles that come with old age and the passing of time, but when it comes down to it “this coloured counterfeit” of a painting is really “corpse and dust, shadow and nothingness" (source).

This poem, written in the baroque era, made me think back to the grandiose architecture.  Was there harm in this specific characteristic of the baroque era?  Was it a disillusionment of something that would disappoint as each layer was peeled back until nothingness remained?  Should they have returned to simplicity, too?  Or was there a separate, more valuable purpose to this art?

Image sources: Blenheim Palace (via Literary Festivals), sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (via biography.com)