WASHING HAIR JUST LIKE THAT

Nature or God is so mysterious and the way he creates us human being is even more myterious. We live for ourselves, within our own head that even if we rack our own brains, we still couldn’t under our own selves. We constantly explore ourselves and explore the world. Why do we have to explore? Because of the darkness! Close yours eyes, things becomes dark, but even when we open ours eyes, it is still dark and far away in the milky way except some really tiny stars, the rest of the Universe is dark, deep dark like the ink color. Nguyen The Son purposes the subject “headwash” in his work seems like just a mundane everyday life issue that we see it every where on the street such as hair wash, hair cut, hair wash and massage, hair wash in the air condition shop… but he has turned this subject to an opposite side, it is washing hair but the self potrait is looking from the back. We see the back os the heads of other people a lot but we rarely see the back of our own heads. But who force us to see our own back of the heads? Of cource not, accordings to the law, it is not a requirement. But to a person’s lifetime and his responsibility to his own life, then it is a requirement. It is an act of seeing and recognizing the dark side os oneself. Arround us, there are some people who are brighter than the others, but the rest of us human being in general carry within ourselves thousands of dark sides. According to books and historiecal documents, there was monk who has experienced the light and even more light, and even the brightest light that could light up the whole universe, Jesus Christ in the Bible also said: “I am the light of this world” But once in a while, there are a few brilliant people like that, the rest of the human being in the world like us still haven’t brighten enough. Electricity is not enough to brighten up the dark nights, not even mention the sacred light of the nature. And before being able to see the light, ones has to learn to see and recognize the darkness. Open the eyes, thousands of things like plants and tree are so beautiful and charming. Close the eyes, there is only the darkness, mundane and tasteless! But going through the darkness is the way to see the light. It is really hopeful, the only thing is in this “washing hair” piece by Son, the message he wants to send us is the hope is not coming from anyone, or anything from the outsides, it comes right within our own heads, or it is like an advice telling us “we should look at the back of our own heads”. If could also be nonsense to raise our voice to encourage each other hoping to look forward, to move forward, while here , the hope is by looking at the back of our own heads. But in front of thousands of lifetimes, in front of universe, and even in front of time of every minute and second, we learn to see ourselves from the back, then it no longer nonsense at all. We clean ourselves, we wash our own (hair) heads, we look at the dark sides of ourselves, we look at the side that we often turn our backs to our own selves it is right behind on the back of our heads, it is also the answer for the questions Gauguin has brought up before: “Who are we? Where do we come from, where are we going to?”

Nguyen Minh Thanh