Trompe l'oeil

In art there is a term called trompe l'oeil. It's a fancy French word

literally meaning to "deceive the eye," and its an awesome technique
that artists use to create optical illusions. It is achieved by painting the
object to be intensely realistic and three-dimensional in a two-dimensional
format, which is usually flatter looking. What its ultimate goal is to trick
the viewer into seeing the thing as not just part of the painting, but
part of reality, something real and tangible.

For example, an artist might paint a ceiling to look like clouds
or a plaster wall could be made to look like elegant arches.
What is cool about trompe l'oeil is that the way the artist succeeds
in executing the technique depends on his mastery of
PERSPECTIVE,
but the way a view sees it is by losing perspective.

My wise advice, cuz I know you're all waiting for it,
is that we allow ourselves to lose perspective all the time,
especially when it comes to things we expect or want to see.
Our expectations fuel our interactions,
and sometimes we are surprised when the results are different
than what we expected. One of the biggest pieces of wisdom
I have is that we shouldn't let ourselves believe that we deserve
anything from anyone- don't take advantage of the fact that people
are there because they care.

And really there is a lot that we could learn from the idea of
trompe l'oeil. It is starting to make my head hurt.


All in all, I just wanted to say that this last weekend was
a treat. I had an amazing friend from Utah up to visit, my
favorite Mr. Friend by my side, and awesome words that
filled me up with hope and gave me some new perspective.

A change of perspective is sometimes a great thing to experience.

It was one of my favorite weekends in a long, long time.