The Psychosis of the Lost

This design was inspired by this quote: “Minds that have withered into psychosis are far more terrifying than any character of fiction.” — Christian Baloga. Yes, the shocking part of this quote is how the writer describes psychosis as more terrifying than any character of fiction. I don’t know about you but I can think of plenty of terrifying characters of fiction that I would never want to meet in real life! And now, imagine what that means if psychosis is more terrifying than that. However, that being so, the question I dwelt on was why. Why is psychosis so terrifying?

The answer is in the word ‘withered’. It hints at a mind slowly dying away, a gradual loss of what was before. Hence, I summed the whole quote into one word: lost. The dictionary definition of the word ‘lost’ is: denoting something that has been taken away and cannot be recovered. To be lost is to have no hope.

In the Bible, there is a well-known story about a prodigal son. The prodigal son went to his father and demanded a portion of his inheritance. After getting the money, he left home and lived a life of pleasure and extravagance until he finally was destitute and decided to return home and reconcile with his father. The story ends with the father saying “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” — Luke 15:32. In the famous hymn “Amazing Grace”, the writer too concludes “I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see”.

Having chosen to form the word ‘lost’ out of withered flowers, I was advised to go out, buy some and bring them home to wait till they withered. Instead, I took a walk in the park and picked up withered flowers lying all over the ground. Though they retained some of their brilliant colours, they lay drooping by the wayside.

On that hot and sweltering day at that park, I slapped at mosquitos and contemplated the word ‘lost’. Physically, yes, it doesn’t seem like we are missing anything. We are alive and able to see - how can we be lost? But we are lost because in and of ourselves, we are dead to the reality of the spiritual and caught up with the material. We are blind and oblivious to the problems around us. We are without hope.

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Design info:

The theme of this assignment was spiritual psychosis.

The design is made up of withered flowers and leaves on a pavement.

Inspired by Stefan Sagmeister's work as seen here.

Software - Edited in Photoshop

Camera - Olympus E-PM1