At the end of the ripples

At the End of the Ripples
The title echoes the idea of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, except the treasure is not money or success. It is understanding.
If I follow the ripples generated by choices, chances, habits, mistakes, joys and regrets, I eventually arrive at where I am now.
Comfortable. Secure. Reflective.
Not perfect.
Just far enough along the journey to turn around and see the path.
A while ago, I was writing about the ripple effect in life when something unusual happened. At least, I thought it had.
As I prepared the blog, an image appeared that seemed almost perfectly chosen for the subject. For a brief moment I found myself thinking, "How clever is that?" It felt as though the software had reached into my image collection and selected exactly the right picture to accompany the words.
Of course, that was not what had happened at all.
When I published the blog, the image disappeared, revealing the page beneath. What I had taken as intelligence was simply coincidence. Yet the thought process it triggered remained.
The image was of a young boy smoking a cigarette.
Immediately I stopped seeing it as a photograph and started seeing it as a ripple.
Looking back from where I am today, with various lung conditions that have become part of daily life, it is impossible not to see the connection. What might have appeared insignificant at the time carried consequences far beyond the moment itself. A small action created a ripple that continued travelling through the years.
Then another ripple came to mind.
Alcohol.
Not the dramatic side of it. Not the headlines or horror stories people often imagine. Simply the beginning. The first taste. The enjoyment of that taste. The enjoyment of the feeling that followed.
At the time, it seemed completely ordinary.
Yet that ripple continued too.
Years passed. Circumstances changed. People came and went. Life moved forward. Yet that one small beginning travelled alongside it all, influencing decisions, experiences, opportunities and relationships. Like many ripples, it did not affect only me. It touched the lives of others as well.
As these thoughts were unfolding, I realised they had already begun inspiring a new piece of artwork. That is often how my work starts. Not from a plan, but from a question. An observation. A connection that suddenly appears where I had not noticed one before.
My art has never really been about providing answers. More often it is about exploring things that are difficult to express directly. A drawing, a sketch or a visual idea can sometimes hold a thought more comfortably than words can. Looking at life through the idea of ripples, I could already see images forming. Small moments expanding outward through time, crossing paths with countless other moments, ultimately creating the person standing here today.
The older I get, the more fascinated I become by the fact that life's biggest influences rarely arrive waving a flag.
Most often they arrive disguised as ordinary moments.
A conversation.
A habit.
A friendship.
A cigarette.
A drink.
A decision that feels unimportant on a particular afternoon but quietly continues travelling long after the moment itself has passed.
These days I live a comfortable life. I have a secure home, food on the table, good friends, financial stability and a warm bed at the end of the day. I know very well that many people never enjoy those foundations. I have seen lives lived without them. I have known people fighting battles that make my problems seem small by comparison.
Perhaps that is why these thoughts occasionally return.
Not because I am searching for regret.
Not because I am looking for excuses.
But because I find myself wondering how all of these ripples combined to bring me here.
We spend much of our lives looking forward, chasing the horizon as though happiness exists somewhere beyond it. Yet every now and then it is worth turning around and looking behind us.
Not to judge.
Not to blame.
Simply to observe.
To see how the smallest stones cast into the water often created the largest patterns.
And perhaps that is what waits at the end of the ripples.
Not answers.
Not treasure.
Not even certainty.
Just a little understanding of how we became the people we are today..

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