Everything Changes.

“Look around you. Everything changes. Everything on this earth is in a continuous state of evolving, refining, improving, adapting, enhancing and changing. You were not put on this earth to remain stagnant.” – Steve Maraboli

Positive and Negative Projections.

We might define genuinely beautiful objects as those endowed with sufficient innate assets as to withstand our positive or negative projections. – Alain de Botton

 

Deformities.

“It may well be that we can never fully adapt to our own deformities. Unable to find a place inside ourselves for the very real pain and suffering that these deformities cause, we come here to get away from such things. As long as we are here, we can get by without hurting others or being hurt by them because we know that we are “deformed.” That’s what distinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives they’re unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities themselves are a precondition. Just as Indians wear feathers on their heads to show which tribes they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another.” – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

The Luckiest.

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they dont deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I dont recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did. – Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men

 

Depression & Art

If the level of intensity of anybody’s disorder is sufficiently high, you can’t move. For people who’ve experienced clinical depression the problem is getting to the next moment. The room tilts, you lose your balance, you’re incapable of coherent thought.

It’s a popular notion that it is exclusively suffering that produces good work, or insightful work, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think in a certain sense it’s a trigger or a lever, but I think that good work is produced in spite of suffering. As a victory over suffering. – Leonard Cohen on depression and art.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly.

…and the l o v e [ l y ].

If they are illusion, then I also am illusion, and so they are always of the same nature as myself. It is that which makes them so lovable and venerable. That is why I can love them. And here is a doctrine at which you will laugh. It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world. It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect. – Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse

The quote above really illuminated how I feel about the word, “friendship” and even how I feel about the word “love.” There have been times, and I know others that have had times and experiences, where they are disappointed because they give of themselves, expecting someone or something in return. It’s not that their intentions are selfish, or not honest, but there are expectations that other parties may not be aware of. I’ve been reading about relationships, and love, worth, selflessness and meaning. And honestly, the religious studies class I’m taking just allows me time to think about why: what is it that connects us, why is it important, what do we want from those connections, what brings us together, keeps us apart, why care?

It is really easy sometimes, to let emotion cloud and even persuade our reason. To say, act in a way we wouldn’t, because we react from previously had experiences. Our thinking processes disengage and basic reactions take over: fear, happiness, sadness, you get the point. There’s no, objectivity, no…balance. Friendships and relationships are like this. Many things are like this. How a situation is, in reality, versus what we feel it is based on our past experiences, expectations, and emotion connections.

The part about reacting to situations, and people based on previous experiences is true. Climbing is like this sometimes, and so is making art. If you’re climbing a route you did poorly on, or had a bad experience on, there is a chance you may not climb well on that route again, because of this previous negative experience. Or even worse, you might avoid climbing the route altogether because of one bad session.

This leaves, really, no room for learning. Failing at something is learning. Or at least, leaves you an open door to learn or gain something. Experiences aren’t just about success and failure. If they were then everything would have a worth value….and somethings (at least I think, most things in general) should be experienced for the sake of just experiencing them.

Art too is prone to this weakness or flaw. You can become comfortable with a process and blind to other avenues of experimentation. In some cases, convince yourself you will be no good at something else because you are only good at this one thing. Even compliments and criticism can cripple. If the only point of art is praise, what happens after receiving it? So to with criticism, if you have no faith or belief in the message you are sharing or the process you are experiencing, then the opinions of others, regardless of their validity, will always be the determining factor of your worth.

I’ll say that again…If you have no faith or belief in the message you are sharing or the process you are experiencing, then the opinions of others, regardless of their validity, will always be the determining factor of your worth.

Even the relationships that bring me pain, I love. And so to the people & experiences. Because if I don’t, then I have no love or understanding for myself. And I can’t exist if I have no love or understanding for myself.

Action.

You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

I started training for the MS city to shore: 75 miles of road biking. Completed a 30.5 mile road ride on Sunday.

It’s good to have goals. It doesn’t matter how far they take you, just that you commit, and do them. Time is irrelevant.

It is already a beautiful journey.

Cynicism: Belief, Doubt, & Worth.

We have met the enemy and he is us. – Pogo (Art & Fear)

How strong is your belief in yourself? Do you value yourself? Perhaps there are times when you second guess yourself, despite the presence of what you might call “worth” or “self-worth.” How far outside of your own environment do these actions extend? Do you at times value others but then second guess their intentions or motives? Would trust be a good word to use in a situation like that?

It’s easy to fall back on the belief, that something has to be worth something else. That no one thing can be worth anything of value or substance on its own, basically, that a thing can be of worth in itself. I wonder at times if this has to do with trust and belief, with past experience and expectation, or with something as simple as motivation (or a single motivator.)

Self Portrait (Blue) © ChossyGrl

I will infrequently talk about my job, here in this space, because I hold it as sacred. That is to say, that my job is something I do because it is rewarding of in itself. Not because it pays well, or because it affords me material things, security, health care, or even stability. My job is sacred because it’s become a space through which I can feel at peace & balanced. I’m not sure if other people can say that about their work, or if they could only say that if money were a motivator, or if guaranteed work were a motivator.

Some things are  in a way such that, to attach a value to it, would demean it and reduce it to a thing corrupt and not pure. (experiences, people, emotions.)

This is how I feel about my job.

This is also how I feel about painting. I believe, that just through the process of actually applying paint, I can experience something wonderful. Or sorrowful. Or mediocre. What ever that thing is meant to be, for me at that time, painting will let me know. And as a viewer, you will be able to see what I was feeling at that time as well.

Cynicism, though fun to laugh at and joke about, is also viral. It can infect you and your work, and your environments.

It’s easy to disbelieve. To devalue something in order to make it more acceptable, manageable, or easier to digest. Like taking something at face value….there could always be another reason or purpose for something, but what about what is only there?

Only the necessary.

Acceptance.

The artistic evidence for the constancy of interior issues is everywhere. It shows in the way most artists return to the same two or three stories again and again. It shows in the palette of Van Gogh, the characters of Hemingway, the orchestration of your favorite composer. We tell the stories we have to tell, stories of the things that draw us in – and why should any of us have more than a handful of those? The only work really worth doing – the only work you can do convincingly – is the work that focuses on the things you care about. To not focus on those issues is to deny the constants in your life. – Art & Fear

Last week I had a conversation with my mother about the past. She said something that moved me deeply (if there were ever a time in my life that I would be grateful of the support of my family, I often times think that it is now.) I was telling her how hard working toward the future feels when there are things in my past that seem as though they cannot let me go, cannot let me move forward. Despite how much effort I put in, sometimes it really does feel as though I’m doing the “one step forward, two steps back” dance. She listened and said, “Don’t carry the past into your future. The only place it belongs in, is in the past.”

I was moved about the idea of acceptance.

You can accept, forgive, in a sense, who you were and things you have done in the past. You can accept people, forgive them too. Sometimes people accept and forgive you. Still, somewhere in the conscious, we are aware of the past, and it makes impressions on our present and influences our future. Its place though, is the past, as a learning experience, as a teacher. A way to discover new things about the self.  A way to grow.

Loneliness and being alone….

There are many things about who I am that I accept. Many things challenge me physically, mentally, emotionally. All these things are part of who I am. To deny them, would be denying myself. Who I am. I’d rather, tell the world I have hurt, I paint, I’m human and I cry sometimes, than to pretend that the world would not accept me if I had all these things in me.

Acceptance….

Is not the same as tolerance. Tolerance is expecting a change. You bear a situation, emotion, physicality.

Love where you are and if you can’t, change it. Don’t carry your past into your future. Make your future your own.

 

Dry Spells & Catalysts.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. – Viktor Frankl ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’

Inspiration can drown you in a flood. So many ideas, rushing through your head at once, there never seems like enough time to record or play with everything that you are imagining. You struggle to grab and hold on to just one thought and see it through to some physical, fleshed out idea. Something you can show to someone else and say, “see this? I had this crazy idea!” A thing you can proceed to rant and gesture wildly about with much enthusiasm. It’s always a wonderful feeling to be driven by thoughts on this one, great, thing.

Then again…

Inspiration sucks the very life from you. It is that unspoken oasis in the desert, sometimes only an illusion, a thing that drives you on, relentlessly through creative brain fever. You question yourself, you doubt yourself, you ask yourself, “why?!?” Inspiration can lead you out to the middle of nowhere without a compass, map, or breadcrumb trail. You can push yourself so hard that when you finally come out, you realize there’s nothing.

The inspiration, the creative process, has stopped.

You are dry.

Thirsting in the desert of idea, with no imagined oasis.

Chock ©ChossyGrl

It’s easy to suffocate during periods of creative “dryness.” Other things fill time, but always, thoughts about making, playing, and experimenting with creative ideas are in the back of the head. Reminding you that you haven’t done anything. It’s easy to stay in this holding pattern. Mostly because getting started again is harder that just continuing without the “flood” of inspiration mentioned before.

I haven’t painted in two weeks. I have ideas, but they are mostly just noise, nothing shouts at me and says, “see me? I’m awesome! You NEED to actualize me….”

This is a hard place to be in right now. On one hand, the physical & mental rest is nice. But emotionally, I feel as though I should be making things, exploring, playing….not just wandering around in my imagined oasis.

I do not want to become rooted….not yet.

To help with my own inspiration I’ve started yoga, I’m walking/riding more, playing around with photography again, and I dyed my hair (blonde.) Coincidently, I’m also going back to college next week.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. –Viktor Frankl ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’