The Unity of Singularities

©Mariano

This is a painting-by-number canvas (a gift from a friend from Christmas) that was painted for a week with 23 different colors. As I was painting this, I would often get frustrated since the details were so small to paint over and it looked really messed up when you look at it closely. I started with the bottom-right corner since it felt the easiest, but the more I painted, the more it didn't make sense - it was different from the sample painting (which I threw away 3 days into the work because I felt pressured on what was the expected product).

However every day, as I stretch my back that has been bending down for 4 to 5 hours and rub my eyes as the clock strikes midnight, I am always surprised to gaze at what I had accomplished from afar.

Though the tiny details don't seem to make sense, looking at it from afar yields a magnificent view.

I named this painting "The Unity of Singularities" because this painting is an epitome of 23 different colors - that don't seem to relate to each other - combined. Every change of color in the adjacent sides brings out the uniqueness and life in the painting. It makes you yearn, it calls out to you to come to visit that place; even though you don't know where it is, might as well imagine yourself drinking tea with a friend on a warm morning while you overlook the sea.

"The Unity of Singularities" calls all Pre-Athenian and Athenian philosophers to unite and scrutinize their beliefs. For the Monists, Earth is not made with water, neither are structures created with water. As for the Pluralists, they could proudly proclaim that distance is boundless or the houses can be solved by the number of atoms or by mathematical formulas. Plato may argue that the painting is the ideal world we want to live and indulge in, but Aristotle may counter that it is real - it just hasn't been discovered yet.

As I piece together different colors of different shapes and sizes into this artwork, I am reminded that not everything is made to be seen individually, but as a whole. For us to live our lives to the fullest, beyond our wildest dreams, stop looking at the scenes playing before our eyes. Instead, enjoy the view of what you have achieved for you to reach where you are today.