the evil eye

The Great Nomroh, acrylic on wood

How Lohbado dealt with the evil eye... At first he thought of attaching an eyeball pendant to his clothing, or wearing an eyeball decoration around his neck.

Because he didn’t go to a job every day, he became a frequent sight in the neighbourhood. Neighbours saw him during fine weather in the back yard, or sitting in front of the building. They could see into the windows of his basement apartment. They saw his coming and going and realized he didn’t go to a job every day. He tried to explain that he was retired and spent his time working on texts and pictures. They told him he looked awfully young. Lohbado wished he looked older. If he had the patience, he would buy a makeup kit to exaggerate the dark, toad-belly flesh under his eyes, or to darken the crows-feet wrinkles around the edges of his sunken eyes, or accentuate the creases running down from the nose and along the sides of his mouth.

Lohbado smiled as his hair and beard turned grey. As he got older, rude and nosy neighbours would begin to get off his case. Just leave him alone. Stop making rude comments or asking personal questions.

The evil eye: neighbours watch you. When they sense your lifestyle is unconventional, they move in for the kill. Status is important to people who never stopped to reflect on the nature of status. 

Lohbado stopped to reflect on the nature of the evil eye. It was ultimately empty. However, it did feel oppressive and hurtful, when he thought about it. So don’t think about it. Relax. Watch the thoughts about evil eye come and go. Don’t obsess about it.

For a while, Lohbado thought about the evil eye. People watch each other out of curiosity and desire. 

There’s no problem with that. Don’t be so uptight. Instead of viewing the eye as evil, you could see it as a physical and psychic organ, with an erotic overtone. It was a way of establishing intimate contact, of caressing each other. The critical, accusative stare of a neighbour wanting to know why you’re not going to work, or if you’re on permanent vacation, or if... horror of horrors, you’re unemployed... however, at sixty, Lohbado was retired, even if he looked like he was only fifty. The evil eye was ultimately a psychic genital, attempting to penetrate personal space in order to have a self-righteous or moralistic orgasm. 

Poof! It’s just a joke. Smile. Be confident. Mind your own business.