Quote me

Quote Me

“Do you have a favorite quote that you return to again and again? What is it, and why does it move you?”

‘When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.’
Mark Twain

This is the tag line for my main art blog and a signature in a few forums. I’ve been using it for a few years now and feel that it still really describes how I feel about late-stage capitalism and the rush to be better, richer, more popular than everyone else and how we exteriorise this competition in the purchase of consumer good.

I’m not immune to this competition, I honestly don’t believe anyone can be completely immune to it with the 24 hour immersion to comply and consume that is prevalent in our culture. There are more norms, including gender stereotyping, that need to be challenged, as these set up an artificial scale of value to our activities.

What I realised from this quote is that we are all mad for this disease of consumerism and acknowledging it help us to see where we can occasionally step away from the race that we are all running and watch from the sidelines or even take a different path if we are brave and have the energy to keep this up against the societal pressures to conform and not be different.

I wake every day with the intention to live my life fully in harmony and peace with the world and the people in it.

Having worked in special education (working with children on the AS) for almost thirty years I hope that I can pass some of this resilience to the children I work with and teach them to accept themselves in a society that tries to make them conform to the ‘norms’ around them.

We have challenge these oppressions of non-conformity to societal norms on a daily basis otherwise they will become more entrenched and destructive to our society and the individuals in it.