Week 6: Obsession 

In thinking about this week’s theme, I pondered what obsession looks like in our lives. Yes, we all have things we are obsessed with— but being obsessed with a person, or a tv show, or revenge, or habits all manifest themselves as very different actions. And yet, we describe all of these with the same phrase: obsession. Which got me thinking about the action and emotion of obsession itself. It is all-consuming, constant, aggressive. It cannot be stopped. It forces itself, doesn’t take know for an answer. And it’s not pretty. It reveals all the flaws. When I came across this light outside my office the other night, it reminded me of that action. It’s a light, shining very harshly and brightly. It is ugly in color and tone. It is shining a very forceful light into a dark void, and making you see everything. It is showing all the bumps and holes and unevenness of the wall. It is causing shadows. It is persistent, even though it is so dark out, to make the wall as bright as possible. And something about looking up into it, I felt mesmerized and drawn in, which also reminded me of a moth being drawn to a flame— it’s inescapable. This angle in particular being askew also was important to me as I took the picture, with the way you feel slightly off balance. I saw the light on this diagonal which made me feel all the more fascinated by it. And in taking the photo, there’s that aura around the light source too, which I didn’t like at first, but now in examining it more deeply, it does give that idea of radiance and outward pull of that source of obsession, pulling you in. Obsession is just like that. It’s a persistent source, that you feel drawn into, and you can’t stop it, and it reveals all of your flaws.