This is the work of Terry Fan. If you click on the photo, you will be taken to his website.
Some years ago, on the first of May, I took myself to the ocean and built a giant fire to herald the beginning of spring. There was a huge moon that lit the night so well, I needed no other light by which to see. I dragged my camping mattress down onto the sand and let myself sink into the moment. I wandered away from myself for a while, listening to the crash of the waves, and staring at the night sky.
As I lie there, this notion came unbidden to mind; that the ocean, and indeed the Earth itself, is nothing but a vast organic machine. Its processes are no less regulated than that of a mechanism, even if our best chance at progress as well as our greatest opportunity for disaster seems to occur when there is a malfunction.
Since that time, I have had doctors tell me that traits I always attributed to personality or temperment, could easily be ascribed to ongoing electro-chemical misfires the roots of which began in utero. As I spun, anchored but unsteady, in my mother’s womb, my brain could not recognize which way was up. Sometimes, I think that is still the case…Â
The result of this confusion caused my brain to establish neural connections that are profoundly unlike that of most other humans. It means my body and brain do not behave in conventional ways when exposed to stimuli. I have an unusually keen sense of smell, I can see with particular acuity in very low light conditions, and I rely more confidently on what I hear than upon what I see; I will often ignore the evidence of my other senses in favor of what I am told. Credulous, to a fault, I am.
This, though, might be what has honed the finest part of my machinery; for I am a most excellent mockingbird. I am not even entirely convinced I am a good singer so much as I am just such a gifted mimic as to make the distinction meaningless. Good with accents, too.
In the nature/nurture dichotomy, I have feet firmly planted on each side. I understand fundamentally that bone, tendon, and blood are subject to irresistible chemical laws as much as that the whole clockwork must have the explicit direction of my mind to move. I am so elementally a product of the atmosphere in which I was reared, both as a unborn child, and once I emerged into the open air that to pretend one had the greater effect is to ignore a weight of evidence heavier than the machinery of the ocean itself.Â
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