why would it hurt me—or was it real?

Even though Simon doesn’t have handcuffs on you can still see the bruises/marks from when he was cuffed previously. They never go away or are visibly lost in the rest of the overwhelming injuries. Obviously he mentions them to Ava re: not being able to act voluntarily and in the larger context of his (and everyone’s) lack of autonomy. Even if he could get to the surface the marks are a constant reminder of the continued imprisonment that likely waits up there.

That said, Simon is faced with significant, almost endless choices while in the red, even when they can’t change his ultimate fate. They are unimportant choices like the choices a rat in a maze has, but they are also important choices because they are fundamentally self-defining and self-affirming (though tragic) for Simon. This plays out again with his wrists. Even though he doesn’t have his own seed (connected to Eden and individual identity) he keeps the strap it was tied to on his wrist. He ties the found seed (itself preserved in another closed circle) to his other wrist. He basically cuffs himself by choice.

And then it goes beyond all control. The seed stays strapped to Simon and ties him down during his hallucination sequence, and stays intact even when he loses his arm. In one of the last images of his remaining hand holding onto the black box, the bruise from the cuff and his original strap is still visible. And of course, the strap on his lost arm holds the seed that eventually unleashes Simon’s tree and remakes Simon.

congrats! Now you have a motif! A recurring theme! A focus for your art! Something to haunt you!

Seventeen still lives of dandelions? Three hundred poems about grief? A sketchbook dedicated to your grandmother’s house? Two books trying to unravel the complexities of familial relationships?

An early exploration of the themes Hokusai would keep coming back to is Spring in Enoshima, done in 1793 when he was 33. The wave is small and there are no boats, but Mt Fuji is clear in the background, and Enoshima is in Kanagawa, so we are clearly beginning to work towards something here.

A second pass, eleven years later in 1803 when he was 44. The title of this one begins to get more familiar: The View of Honmoku Off Kanazawa. It has a towering wave over a smaller boat, but Mt Fuji is not present, and the boat is considerably larger and has a sail. But the feeling of danger in the wave and the smallness of the boat are here, and of course the general composition is definitely recognizable.

This is A View Of Express Delivery Boats, done in 1805, merely two years later at age 46. Here we find the wave and the boats almost exactly as we'll find them in The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, though Mt Fuji isn't present, and the location is uncertain. And it's a good picture! The wave is threatening, the boats are small -- but the feeling of "ocean" isn't really there yet, is it? It's unlikely this picture would have become a classic for the ages. But that's okay, there's still time.

And here we have it, a full 26 years later, done by Hokusai in 1831 at the age of 72. The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world. The boats are there, the mountain is there, the wave is there, and the FEELING is there. He did it! He reached the apex of his ongoing motif and theme!

Or did he? Because the whole point of a motif is not that you're striving to get to the perfect version of it, the one idealized image you carried in your head all along, and when it is done, you are also done. Hokusai is on record at the age of 73 saying he'd only just begun to feel like he was learning how to draw things properly, and that "if I keep up my efforts, I will have even a better understanding when I was 80 and by 90 will have penetrated to the heart of things. At 100, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live decades beyond that, everything I paint — dot and line — will be alive." He had drawn The Great Wave, but he didn't believe he was finished -- he thought that he was still just beginning to get started.

And he wasn't finished with his ocean motif, either. Please check out his Mt Fuji At Sea, done in 1834 at the age of 75.

Block Island - Gretchen Dow Simpson , 1997

American , 1939-2025

Thrown Drapery 'Redux' Study 1 - David Ligare , 2004.

American , b. 1945 -

fruit trash icons by Mayosoft (2004)

so like if the username is something like "dancingwithbears" they'll refer to their husband as "Mr. Bears"