When I was first prompted with the assignment to bring in something that represents the stream of consciousness, I was stumped! After reading and researching about the stream of conscious, I found that stream of consciousness is something gives the person a creative impression, an observation, and a reflection of thought. A lot of things came into mind but the one that stood out was this painting that is commonly seen in the N and Q trains of New York City. This came into my mind representing what I think is the stream of consciousness, because I always think about how much time of my life is used to commute on the NYC MTA. A large majority of the time there is absolutely nothing to do except listen to the music, play that new game you downloaded on your phone, take a nap or stare around and think about what you see on the train. I always take the Q train, so I almost always see this painting. This painting in short is basically all the different types of everyday commuters in NYC. It shows the tourists wearing the iconic “I heart NY” shirt looking for directions on the map, the many different types of ethnicity, a woman doing her makeup, performers/actors, an old Jewish rabbi, an old Asian lady with bags of groceries, a musical artist with a large instrument, a hipster, a business man, a couple kissing, and a mom with her kids misbehaving. I remember the first time seeing this painting and it brought some chuckles to me because it is so true and relevant to my life. This is really what I see almost every day I take the train; and I truly believe this painting depicts the meaning of NY, NYC. The melting pot of many different diversity and different people is the heart of NY. I also think this what people who live in NYC that takes the train almost every day, perceive the many different people they encounter on the train, but someone may look at this painting and feel totally indifferent.
This picture shows many principles of what reminds me of the stream of consciousness. Our minds are never stagnate and so many people have seen or came across this picture before. These people all interpret this picture differently to their own personal experiences on the train. Plus there are so many different people and actions happening at once in the picture, it’s hard to focus on just one part of the picture; which can bring many different thoughts and feelings about this picture.