The Metaphor of Frida Kahlo

“I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows,

but now the damned things have learned to swim.”

Frieda Kahlo

Seeing dimensions is one great success of the postmodern geometrical mind. Three dimensions, two dimensions, one dimension … and while the mind returns upon itself to visually fancy even more dimension, I wonder if we ever ‘hear’ dimensions. If we ever ‘feel’ dimensions. If we ever ‘smelled’ or ‘tasted’ dimensions.

I hear now in mono-dimensions, and this is my first metaphor.

One hundred years ago, Frida Kahlo opened her eyes to one new weird environment, full of colors, feelings and pain. Her metaphor was her secret mental life, which, in a way every one of us has (the metaphor AND the secret mental life) – enclosed, hidden beyond layers and layers of that we call the official Self.

Frieda’s metaphor is one of the realism we desire to perceive in the middle of surrealistic nonsense we call ‘world’. The static, silent form of the “I”, sitting in a little dark place and chanting the ‘daily’ story of a chronological ‘life’. The colors and situation, the stages around the “I” might change, but the “I” remains unmoved, always about the level of our eyes that stare back to a non-existent mirror.

The metaphor of Frida Kahlo teaches us the sheer (what might be called) psychosis, that our mind, in some fleeting moments, reflects in ItSelf. Because ‘being human’ is a pose of an invented metaphor. ‘Being human’ are two words.

… understanding fades the more deeper an analysis starts to be.

But there is a way out of the labyrinth of metaphors. This way may teach us that to understand the essential, you must first ascend to the ocean of superficiality. If you do not want to drown, while trying to understand the nature of water, you must float above it. All what you will understand is perhaps your own reflection in the waves, but once you recognize it as Self, you’ll be able to distinguish it from the water.

And the nature of water will be better understood, then by someone drowning, and claiming deepness.

… thus, to get to the essential, beyond all metaphors, you ought to become a metaphorist.

… and find your reflection.