Colouring in the lines;

I think I'm decently obsessed with lines ever since I was a little girl.

Or perhaps it is because we were trained in school to be as such. You know, when you were in kindergarden, they'd ask you to colour in the lines and make sure you colour in the same stroke. And at both I failed miserably. I don't colour in the blimey lines nor do I colour with the same stroke, it's bloody damn tiring tau tak? I remember always complaining about my hand. It's like a form of exercise for my right hand! But anyway, you get the picture.

And I always get compared to the other kids who colour their pictures perfectly, with the right shade of colour for the right things. Like colouring my man in green instead of the normal yellow or orange. Eh hello, kalau aku warna aku punya orang tu hitam pun kau ada masalah ke? So I secretly think my teacher was a racist lor. Or maybe my teacher didn't like Shrek. Hmmm.

Point is, we're so trained to be in the lines, not that it's bad or anything. I mean, we do need some sort of guidance and law to abide to. Even our bodies too, they're obliged to whatever systems our body parts are abide to. You know, the lymph, our muscles, our blood circulations and all that. Our beings are abide to a certain kind of governance. Without it, our bodies wouldn't function. We're abide to gravity. Simple as that. But yeah.

Again, point is, if I were to colour my orang in green pun, apa masalahnya? We're so attuned to that certain stereotypical image or our preconceptions of things that if we were to move an inch of someone's cheese, he/she would freak out. Perhaps also, it is because in general, human beings dislike uncertainties. But that's life, mate.

If you think about it, there are so many forms of lines. We've got straight lines, crooked ones, zig zags and even perforated ones. Each has their own functional roles.

Like a decent continuous line for example, it is complete and continuous. Then you shape the line into a circle. Nothing from outside the circle can penetrate into the circle. Unlike a circle with a perforated line, which is not continuous, allows some sort of an input from outside the circle into the circle.

Or think about that kid in class that really presses his pencil onto his book that if you flip even 3 pages after, you can still see traces of his writing in compare to the kid girl who gently writes on her book with not too much or too little force. If the line is drawn with too much force it gets really dark and rigid whereas if the line is too drawn with too little force it gets too fine.

When the line gets too dark and obvious, the surroundings of the outer and inner circle gets distinctly differentiated, allowing no transcendental space in between it. Living no space for you to think outside the box. Like colouring and maintaining your hand in a single acceleration to colour your printed picture IN the lines. With the preferable 'norm' colour.

On the other hand, if the line is drawn with too little force, the line gets to fine, you can't differentiate the outer and inner surroundings. And things between the external and inner world do not get differentiated properly. They get blurry. Hah, this is easy. Think pathological relationships. You know, the ones where you're supposed to be in a relationship with somebody, but both of you are flirting your ways with other people as well. And the best part is, you both are overtly intimate with other people as well, and you claimed that 'we're just friends and hanging out'.

Worse, if they threaten your existence and your whole entire being trying to persuade you are not who you are.

Sort-your-self-out-first.

I could dive into Freud and the whole neurosis, psychosis and the lines that differentiate one's inner and outer worlds and one's relationship with the mother that helps one to differentiate the two, but that'll be redundant and it would feel like my thesis paper all over again. So er, you get the picture here.

I am glad I colour my man green, and I am also glad I didn't specifically need to colour my bloody picture in a single stroke so it'll come out perfect. To imperfect strokes and non-conformist colours!

Something like this!:

(My niece's drawing back when she was 3)

We need fluctuations in life. The weight is a gift.