A programmer’s paranoia

I always loved Escher (Martin Cornelis Escher [1891, 1971]). I never look at one of his paintings with that state-of-mind of the museum guest. I’ve always lost myself on one of his paintings. Not one of that stupid feelings like “oh my God what a beautiful painting, I think my hearth will explode”.

No. I literally lost myself in an Escher paintings. I associate every moment, every period of my life with one painting. These could be very long periods or just a couple of days. I know that I’m acting against what Escher wanted. He did not write any of his paintings in order to let someone enjoy it but I am a dare person. On those days I’m feeling alone. I’ve dedicated myself only to coding and I cannot find a real person to speak to.

I’m feeling like in Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935 Lithograph). It can look like a banal choice. That painting is one of the most famous together with “relativity”. In my own opinion this in not just one of the bizarre Escher’s perspective. One of that impossible geometries that fool mind and view. It’s a representation of inner soul.

During these days I’ve evaded to look at me through a glass. This probably is because I do not want to accept my own being. I want to be someone unknown, even to myself just like on that Escher painting. I do not look at myself. I do not look at my image reflected and distorted by a metal ball. I do not feel lost cause I do not recognize me.

Instead I look at me from that distorted and volatile world and I do this cause I know that I can’t pass across the canvas. I just sit in a small empty room holding what I can’t see and don’t want to see. There could be some being sits near me but I can’t know this cause I don’t turn my eye for a single moment.

I think that Escher always try to look at reality from two different points of view. Sometimes they are connected and in a continuos shifting between each other. Sometime a reality just shift to another. But this shift is not one-way. You can just look at it from the point of the other reality and see that it’s the same transformation.

The regression of my current situation will be an evolution from another point of view? I will start to see through that ball? Or I will throw it on the ground and just start to look at my own hands? I don’t know what is the right path as I don’t know if I just need to feel myself lost in an Escher painting. Escher just open my eyes. He teach me that life is a continuos shifting. But he don’t teach me if there’s a way to abandon that condition.

I cannot find a way all by myself right now. Perhaps I’m not too dare.