My pairing of an analytical mind and artistic heart creates an engineer with an insatiable desire for an artistic outlet; ergo a blog with an analytical premise and artistic twist! Being trained as an engineer taught me to analyze everything around me. I see a table and I break down the pieces in my head to understand how it was made and how the forces are balanced to allow it to stand and bear weight. It is how I think. But I also break down the coloring, lines, materials, and artistic design. The artist heart colors in the lines the analytical mind draws. Through painting, sculpture, photography, and writing, I have explored art’s ability to express awe, chaos, beauty, and inspiration. To express what it feels like to stand on the southernmost point of Africa. To express how it feels to look over the ocean, see no end, and have your problems get very small. To express how I see the world.

Growing up with three much older siblings I developed a deep desire to understand their world. They were brilliant and kind and athletic and confident and passionate and perfect. But what my younger self didn’t understand was that they were at a different place in their lives. It didn’t stop me from analyzing everything they did to learn about them, which allowed me to develop the ability to see a single situation from multiple perspectives. As I grew up, I began to realize that it was my perspective that idealized them. I was so preoccupied in seeing things from their perspectives that I didn’t understand my own. They weren’t perfect. Don’t get me wrong, they are still pretty amazing people, but they weren’t perfect. They made mistakes. But they never stop trying, which allowed them to grow. Trying to emulate perfection prevents you growing.

Emotions are a powerful force of which I have a complicated relationship. Figuring out that being anxious about your 5^th grade teacher getting mad at you is what was causing you to feel physically ill every Monday for five weeks causes you to question the impact and validity of your emotions. I am not saying everyone needs to have their emotions make them question their reality to cause their emotions to influence their perspective. Just think back on what you remember about the last fight you had with a loved one. Do you remember what they said? Or do you remember how they made you feel? Our memory is influenced by emotion and therefore our decisions based on memory are based on emotion.

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

We do not see the world through our eyes, but through our minds. Each of us develop a perspective shaped through our experiences, knowledge, and emotions. Only by understanding the elements of your life that influence your perspective, can you align it with your values. My perspective has been shaped by growing up as the much younger sister of four siblings, by the effects of anxiety, and by my training as both an engineer and an artist.

This blog attempts to explore perspective. Things that affect my perspective. Things as seen through my perspective. Things that have the power to adjust a societal perspective. Things that help you understand your perspective. Things that challenge your perspective. I invite you to challenge mine as well.

Welcome to A Hardy Girl Perspective!