I painted squares to find the truth. Colors upon colors, corners, sometimes rounded, sometimes sharp. Endless emotion. To this, I owe my life and my affection. But today, laid bare upon us, is not something I embrace with affection. When I was a younger man, used car shopping was a lonely thing. Today it is not quite the same. It is tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know that many of those who are driven to this used car lot are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can drive and grow.
We must all hope to find them.
Your task, between the weeping, is to identify the automobile that encompasses the basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. Upon the show floor, you will see that which they push on you unwillingly, appealing to your base desires, your ochre and red on red, those which have not risen above the mud and the wheel.
A car lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the hands of the sensitive driver. It dies by the same token. Thus remind those that would seek to deceive you that it is companionship that you look for today, not a bargain. I speak not from the pocketbook, but from the solitude of my empty heart.
We see the dealer performing a dual function: first, furthering the integrity of the process of self-expression in the language of the sale; and secondly, protecting the organic continuity of the car in relation to its own laws. Like any organic substance, the car must always be in a state of flux, the tempo being slow or fast. But it must move.
There are but five options before you—van, truck, SUV, sporting car, and sedan. It is within your heart’s tragedy that you will find first your deepest needs. Upon these five, you can have but one. Unless you should see a hybrid, such as the Subaru Forrester, which carries with it a constant repetition of falsehood that may become more convincing than the demonstration of truth within the confines of the five options.
But if that truth transcends the falsehoods it has grown from, embrace that, for the line separating truth from lie is the same line separating doom and ecstasy, or blue from green, or blue over green.
If you ask for my personal preference in model and make, you’ll see upon my list such automobiles as the Kia Soul, the Jeep Gladiator, The Honda Element, and the Nissan Cube. Within such artistry we see the true depth of human emotion and the successes our species can claim.
As to color, there are numerous options, none any better than the last—Orange and Red on Red, Ochre and Red on Red, Blue over Red, Four Darks in Red. If you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point! Color is a religious experience.
Use colors that have already been experienced through the light of day and through the state of mind of total humanity. In other words, colors are not colors. They are laboratory tools which are isolated from all accidentals or impurities so that they have a specified identity or purity. Remember this as you decide on your tint.
Digging deeper than color, you must seek to appreciate the every microcosm of the vehicle and the emotion encased within. With every discerning look upon the ambiguous metallic exterior of your options, imprison the most utter violence in every inch of that vehicle. Only then will true doom capture your decision making, and from that doom, when the decision is made with a proper gaze, grows ecstasy. Not because you looked for it, and certainly not because you expected it, but because it made itself known to you from the soil of tragedy. This is the order in life. Plant everything in doom. What blossoms from within is that which you trust, for it has called to you.
Know that cars must be miraculous. I came here to make you think, nothing more. To think as you journey to a logical ending full of the three big emotions. And perhaps to weep as well.