The Phenomenology of Perception

So I've been diving in to Merleau-Ponty of late...or, rather, attempting to. Through a great friend of mine, I've been introduced to phenomenology, this introduction has been a double edged sword. It is definitely pertinent to the themes within my art practice. But, it seems to be a massively contradictory field, and one that requires a lot of prior knowledge, of things such as Gestalt theory. Which makes me curse the 19 year old me who used to skip off from art theory lectures to go and have coffee and smoke Kent cigarettes (ewww!). So, now, it's just the slightly (!) older me, cigarette free, and therefore no excuse to not get stuck in and read some more. Hmm, maybe I should go eat some chocolate instead, it is Easter after all...