Just a thought, or 3..

Music
"Music isnt my life, I dont know much about it. But without music I wouldn't know much about my life." These rather profound words poped up on my phone as I opened a message from my close friend Dave. A rather beautiful moment of insight from a 21 year old mechanic.
The truth is he put words to something I had felt for a very long time. Music is powerful. It moves people, it seeps beneath the surface and touches the soul. It doesn't matter the genre, what Eminem does for some, slipknot may do for others. Its tells a story, my story, your story, our story. It doesn't wait to resolve, it just tells it like it is. It paints a picture of our lives, weaving lyric and melody together to say what we struggle to put words to. Going counter cultural and talking about the things society chooses to dance around. It doesn't judge, It doesn't try to fix anything. It asks questions even when it doesn't have any answers. It speaks of hurt even before the healing. It makes no judgment it just 'is'. Music doesn't choose its audience, it plays for whoever will listen. Music is just broken people speaking on behalf of broken people and letting us know where not alone in all of this. Music is present in the time of tears, in the time of celebration and almost everything in between. Music is the hug nobody else will give, the friend you always wanted and the voice you never had. "Music isn't my life, I don't know much about it but without it I wouldn't know much about my life."

Words
Whoever said words are just words was, for lack of a better word, a complete Jackass.
One only has to enter the room of any anorexic girl who was called fat in middle school, Speak to the woman who shot her husband after he called her a slut one to many times or look behind the counter at McDonald's where a boy stands who never went to college because his mum told him he would never amount to anything, to realize the power of words.
"Cancer" streaming from the lips of a doctor.
"I do" declared by a bride on her wedding day.
"Fight" chanted by a crowd of kids in a school yard.
All these words have power, Meaning, A voice, Placed to mark a moment. Words enable cults, start wars, change laws, create leaders. Words are the driving force behind almost everything. Words are never "Just words." This is why words are my chosen weapon. Words backed with actions, words backed with truth. Words of hope, rescue and healing. Words to go to war with shame, words to challenge insecurity, words to tell a story that just may be their story. Words that understand and when they don't understand, words to comfort. Words like im sorry, I see you, I care, I love you, What happened to you was wrong.
Words like your beautiful, your worth every minute, your smart, your ok just the way you are.
Words spoken at 3am, words spoken in gutters, words written in books, words published to tell the story of a generation that knows all to well how to use words and all to little about the lasting effect of everything we say.

Pictures.
Pictures speak what we cannot say. They don't bother with engaging our intellect, they go straight to the heart. Engaging our emotions and causing us to respond almost instantly.
Artists, photographers and advertisers have know this forever. We respond to images in a completely different way. Tears come quicker, hope rises, beauty screams out and truth engages.
When we hear of the atrocities of war we feel for them, we know its bad, know its sad, but when we see images suddenly it becomes real, suddenly we engage, suddenly we cannot not feel.
Images dont need a book, they tell you everythig you need to know in a moment, like a punch of letters straight to the face. Images make us ask questions, daring us to seek more. Images are powerful. o this day everybody still wonders what the Mona Lisa's coy smile was really all about. Images surpass history, the art from as early as cave drawings is still spoken about and recognizable today. Images tell us what we cannot say in words. Images complete the picture, pardon the pun.
What if we were to give the pen back to people? Bringing out the beauty in each of them and displaying it for the whole world to see. Telling them that the faces to their stories are powerful. That without them the picture would be incomplete.
Their images would serve as a diverse portrait of the landscape of current society. The most different of people that are still so very much the same. Showing the world the beauty that comes in every shape, size and colour. Skin clear or adorned with metal and ink. Hair flowing naturally or stolen from chemo. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Essentially this is the backbone of dreams.. Dreams that these things may one day be tools to rebuild, revamp and recreate the ideas of normal.

Dont get it? You will...

Smile often
Beth x