The world can become so unfamiliar and far disconnected from reality. For some, this is the norm. They buy into the dream that some day they will be eating rainbows and feeling fulfilled. Nothing is real, a copy of a copy. Fake nails, fake hair, fake boobs, fake tan, fake money, fake food, fake life, the list just goes on. We even try to mimic nature and create our own environments. A sense of control to make us feel safe and hooked on the next latest craze… Some of us fill the planet with our lust for plastic and luxury, leaving others to starve and species to be wiped out. We are certainly not the master race!

I, too, was one of these consumers, craving the latest gadget, a so called 1st world ‘need’…With the fake and polished lifestyle, the flash car, the house and the money. An empty pit of misery that nearly consumed me. I am still unravelling the mess of guilt and the void that social expectations imprinted upon me. Consumerism is what it is all about people, the corporate giants want us to buy, buy and buy! So, you feel unhappy from a shit week at work, working for someone you don’t like in a job you despise? Good! Buy something, buy more until the hurt goes away! ‘Buy now, cry later’ as they say!

The chameleon could almost be the poster child, for this little game we call ‘modern life’ – our rapidly-changing environment ever requiring of us a constantly updated and fashionable new cover. Moving through the jungle, changing their appearance to blend into their surrounds, putting on whatever facade is required for survival. As we move through the social pitfalls of life, we get so experienced with the changes…Putting on one mask for this occasion, a different mask for the next. You get it! We all change our colours to suit the environment! However, when we are cornered, like a chameleon, the SHAPE SHIFTER’ truly appears. We leap from the safety of our cover, exposing our true selves, changing rapidly into bright and stronger contrasting colours. We take a fighting stance and the exposed animalism of this reactive being now puts on a real magic show. Win or lose, you feel the sting of being human!

Wake up!

I guess the big issue arises when we take a serious look at ourselves in the mirror and realise that the life we have created, with all its multi-facetted complexities, is just bullshit and we TOTALLY LACK SUBSTANCE. Only then can we find our compassion, our LOVE and make the shift. Do it now before it is too late and you are consumed in your own living hell!

Solitude Art © ®