It’s been ‘all-the-rage’ for some time now. A group of people get together in a social atmosphere (translation: wine is served) and look at a painting of some kind and try to duplicate what they are observing. Mind you that all participants are looking at the exact same art work when they proceed to reproduce it……..as theirs.
We had one at our house recently. Not sure who thought of this social event or where it started but it’s a grand slam and it’s becoming increasingly popular. Now as I saw the finished products, of which just a few of the many are shown here, I could not help think how hard it was for me to believe that people were looking at the exact same painting.
But the art instructor was quick to point out that art is subjective. It’s what the artist sees which means there is really no ‘right answer’. I find a direct parallel to these art works and the different things people believe in our diabetes world.
Whether it’s a way to manage diabetes, an organization believed in, a form of research, or how one faces diabetes on a daily basis……..each and every person does it differently.
But is diabetes subjective, like art?
That’s the question I kept asking myself. In as much as I can truly appreciate when someone paints something and has a point of view; It does not change the fact that what is painted does not necessarily come anywhere near the original.
To me if the art work being looked at is to inspire one to paint, then there is not right or wrong answer. But IF one’s goals were to duplicate it, and it looks nothing like the original, then the objective was probably not met. I’m pretty sure in the context of these evenings few are out to fully duplicate the painting exactly and I AM NOT here to say that people are getting it wrong.
What I’m saying is that in as much as one may like and be comfortable in the way they are dealing with something, if it’s supposed to be done a certain way based upon scientific fact (know this key phrase) and it’s not; it’s wrong. No matter how comfortable one feels about. Recently I met a person who has T1D and he was telling me that he checks his blood sugar once a day, he needs to do it no more. Now as much as he may be comfortable in doing that (as my friend Jeff Hitchcock says, ‘show me the science that proves that.’) it’s NOT the way to handle T1D…..science just says otherwise.
In art work it does not matter if 10 people are looking at a painting and some show two clouds and some make it a completely cloudy day. But there are things in this diabetes world that no matter how many times one does it, it will never make sense to be done otherwise, based upon years of data. One cannot just go through life with this disease on a wing and prayer. You can not just do something any way you choose and think it will ‘JUST’ be all right, just because you say so.
I’m sorry but it just doesn’t work that way.
I say this not as a judgment. At the end of the day you make the choices. But the plain and simple truth is that one with T1D cannot go for too long without taking insulin. Now as silly as that even sounds there are other things that people do that have absolutely no scientific data to back up how they handle it………..but the process is thought to be okay to do for THE ONLY reason that one thinks it’s okay.
You can get away with running through a red light a million times……..but at some point disaster is going to hit. Taking a chance that you can copy an art work can be a fun thing to do and a great evening out; taking a chance dealing with diabetes………probably not. Diabetes is just not always broad strokes……..think about it.
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