Observed Works
The space above mountains produces a sense of vertigo, or “fear of the void”. Typically this is a cold aerial space for birds and not the domain of humans. Along the edge of the cliff, the solid rocks and ground are juxtaposed against nothingness. As I was drawing this image I was thinking about this sense of vertigo. According to Sartre, vertigo is a moment of clarity for us, where we realize that we have total freedom. We are not so much afraid of falling off the cliff as we are of the fact that we could jump, and hopefully make the choice not to. We have the freedom to do either, and nothing is stopping us from travelling along the path or leaping off of it. In fact, in every moment we have the freedom to choose to be the best or worst versions of ourselves, and that freedom does not make us happy, but rather it produces the feeling of anguish. We spend a lot of energy in life trying to remove this feeling of anguish generated by having to make continual choices, both big and small.