The Seed and The Tree
Potentiality and Actuality is a concept that has always resonated with me. We are witnesses to this theme daily. The bulb has the potential to be the hyacinth. The newborn has the potential to be an adult. The adult is the actualized potential of the child. A seed only has the potentiality to become whatever tree it is. It will not grow into a cactus and it certainly doesn’t have the potentiality to grow into an adult human being. We each have potentiality and our life’s job is to actualize it.
As humans we can alter this potentiality/actuality theme. We may be born to be actualized as an adult, but our personal potential functions on a different plane. Because we are a creative species one creation spurs the creation of many more, therefore, we are exponential. Language and art are perfect examples of this. As individuals we each have a personal sphere and with that we have the ability to personally expand or contract. With the expansion of self or growth, potentiality expands. And with limitless potential, fully actualizing oneself seems impossible. To me, this is a very hopeful existence. To get to the bottom of oneself sounds a bit like death. It would mean that somewhere along the way I gave up and I have ceased to grow.
An artist doesn’t stop once they complete a masterpiece, they continue to create until they die. They never reach the maximum potential of their creativity, it’s impossible, because with creativity they expand all paths before them. Our embodied existence is predicated on fulfilling our potential growth, but because of our profound creativity, are unable to. We have a limitless existence and are only limited by ourselves and our mortality.
The Limited Self
We can feign an interesting existence by pointing to everything that sits on our shelves, or we can be an interesting person by taking action in the world. One is passive and one is active. When we discern who is who in this distinction between active and passive persons, whether it’s us or others, we can’t help but admire and value the active player more. They take risks that most others won’t. They create the art, they don’t just collect it. They venture up the mountain, rather than watch films about it.
When we value these active players, take for instance the mountain climber, is it the mountain, the climber, or the trek that we value and can we really separate them? What is it that demands respect? It’s the mountain he chose, the journey he took, and the person he was when he did it. You can’t really separate it. How do we apply this to a creative person and what they produce?
What value does the created thing have compared to the creator?
Be it a piece of art or some other creation, can we answer this? Are Van Gogh’s pieces more valuable than his person? The artwork is all an expression of the person, so can that be separated? At one point an invisible aspect of this person is made tangible. The soul, so to speak, is pulled out into the world and we are able to place a value on it. Therefore, aren’t we really valuing the person? We can’t possess a mortal being in life and certainly not in death. But we can possess or at least enjoy a reflection of it, for as long as that piece exists.
The art alone loses value when we don’t know who created it because it’s lost its context. Art becomes dynamic because of the artist. It points back to the person. When we create or act, the creation and action points back to the originator. When we are passive in this world, nothing really points back to us. When I referenced being a passive person and collecting objects to appear interesting, all you can do is point to the interesting things, they don’t point back.
The Limitless Self
The self can be a lonely person to face. There is a fear that when we’re alone there is nothing but solitude. What we hoped would be oceans of ideas and thoughts are just puddles. There’s an anxiety that we’ve gathered objects and people around us, and have have fooled ourselves into thinking that we are far more interesting than we really are.
What makes a person interesting? It isn’t the amalgamation of objects that feign being an introspective and curious minded person. If my house of stuff burned up overnight, how could I signal to all those around me that I am interesting? That is a shortcut, social signaling and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
We aren’t handed a certificate that ensures an interesting life, or a license of fulfillment. The responsibility of this life and how much we can develop from it, is on us. The world will exist as we all pass in and out of it, it will not give you this, you simply have to create it.
The Subtle Sway
People will rally behind you when they feel it is in their best interest to do so. When they want to curb your motions, they will silently say so. It’s the absence of support, it’s the lack of commentary. And they will cheer you on again when your path aligns with theirs. This is what I see as the subtle sway.
We all do this to some degree, it’s our opinions on life, it is our beliefs about others, situations and our cues that either we approve or don’t. And depending on the person, they will fall in line or they will break off.
We need to be steadfast in our pursuits especially when the difference between me and you is belief.
Beliefs are ideas that have driven themselves into our hearts in the form of convictions. Which, quite honestly, may be wrong. How are we to discern truth? Although we have those convictions, we need humility for the simple fact that we have a poverty of knowledge. The more our eyes see, the more we realize the world extends beyond our visual line of sight. That alone should give us pause.
So how do you move forward with belief and humility? Ultimately hope is what lights our way. Hope is the inspiration to take a sea voyage when we have no idea if the ocean spills off the edge of the world. Hope is how we are able to fly. Hope is what optimistically pushes us forward.
I have taken many different paths that inherently oppose the belief systems of those around me, and I could very well be wrong to take them, but hope is what I hold onto, to realize that even if that is true I will find my way.
Wombs and Tombs
As natural as childbearing is, the task is daunting. The responsibility for the survival of mankind is largely at the feet of women as we carry the future of the world within us.
With as many people that we have on the planet, it isn’t as pressing of an obligation as it surely once was. There was a time when women were entrusted to preserve what little chance we had to survive on this treachorous planet. In the past something like the 2004 Tsunami could have nearly wiped us all out. This world is magnificent, beautiful, and deadly. We are not as safe as we all wish we could be and there is no assuredness to the ultimate survival of life on this planet.
But while we are here, we are a part of its cycle of life and death. We should understand more of our place, to grasp how we are connected to the natural world and to other species. I recently watched the film My Octopus Teacher. It was an elegant study of the relationship of man and nature. It evoked an appreciation for the cycles of life and death that are represented all around us.
Death reminds us of our place, of how we will return to the earth and it is the beautiful burden of knowledge we all carry with us.
The “I” of the beholder
The older I get the more I realize how much we make up life as we go. What we thought would be, isn’t. Who we thought “knew”, doesn’t. It’s been even more difficult trying to understand life being previously religious. I am ultimately responsible for a lot of the questions that religious institutions answered for me.
Now, I personally don't see an over arching authority except perhaps the laws of the universe and our instinctual blue prints. The question is do we adhere to the themes of society or go our own way? I could become nihilistic here and say it is all for naught so, just do as one pleases. I have more hope than to be simply nihilistic, and why is hope even a thing? I guess I could reduce most things to a biological necessity for the preservation of our species. Does it go beyond that though? Are we a part of anything outside of the mechanics of our survival? Does the evolution of our conscious mind change everything?
I am baffled by the awareness of "I”. Our species has this ability generally, but I wonder if other species do to an extent that we just don't understand yet, which would bring up our responsibility to other animals. And is self awareness the only criteria for the responsibility we have to others? I don't think so.
I want to understand consciousness, hope, transcendence. There are mysteries to life that we simply have to run toward, play with and unravel. And there are questions that maybe can’t be answered, but my hope for myself is to always wonder and explore those mysteries.
Play
Some of my most creative, artistic and profound moments happen when I’m playful.
Colors become more vivid and sounds become more musical when we play. It is something I derive meaning from, but I think it is important outside of my own experience—for others as well.
From the beginning, in our first existent moments, we played to understand the world. We mimicked, we talked to ourselves, we pretended things that weren’t real. We molded things to our understanding and it could be more magical. I think this practice is just as important now, I believe it is. With creativity, it demands a playfulness, it demands that we let go of control so that we can get lost, and ultimately— be found again.
“The eternal child. - We think that play and fairy tales belong to childhood:
how shortsighted that is! As though we would want at any time of life to
live without play and fairy tales! We give these things other names, to be
sure, and feel differently about them, but precisely this is the evidence
that they are the same things - for the child too regards play as his work
and fairy tales as his truth. The brevity of life ought to preserve us from a
pedantic division of life into different stages - as though each brought
something new - and a poet ought for once to present a man of two
hundred: one, that is, who really does live without play and fairy tales.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
You are a path outside myself.
I feel a need for others, a purpose outside of myself. Creating work feels empty when it isn’t a gift in some way. In many ways, you are my purpose. When I get lost in the infinite me-ness, narcissism, there isn't a transition to other. It is just me sitting there in my own realm like a dream. If I am by myself looking at and creating art with no one to share it with, it isn't gratifying.
For me, the vehicle to create is in large part, transcendence. A transcending of self to other and on that path, I create. It is a procreative action and it’s relational. With even the idea of being with other people, of communing, the dark city becomes lit. I can see it all again so clearly and I thrive.
I am not here to just feed on you.
In the end, I want to give myself to you.
Mine, part 1.
We are hesitant to allow each other freedom. If you are too free, you are free from me. “Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
I believe that we cannot understand love to the fullest if we try to possess it. It is scary to loosen our grip, but it’s necessary. It is not only for the other person, but for ourselves. When we realize that we cannot possess the other and allow them autonomy, we think that we are freeing them, but really, we are the ones that are freed.
I don’t possess my husband, my children, my friends they are their own persons and like them, I cannot be possessed. We can’t limit each other with prisons of fear.
When this disposition towards the other takes place, we realize that we can be a true friend and companion. I will have your back, I will cheer you on, I will desire the best for you, because I won’t fear your success. I won’t fear you moving on, I will live in the present and take joy in what we have together.
The more I love, the better. The less I fear, the better.
To be continued…
In Flux
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”
― Heraclitus
I’ve always loved this passage. The river is always in flux, as are we. This electric gathering of atoms is always swirling in motion and our minds can move with it.
We always have the opportunity to grow. Even incremental changes within our psyche can profoundly alter our course. Several years ago I came to a realization that changed me. It was simple—what I create is not me. It is an extension of me. I am not my art, it is a reflection of something within me. This separation of what I create from me as a person helped me to let go and make bad art. Yes, bad art. I make mediocre, bad, sometimes ok, and maybe sometimes good art and I have to allow myself to do it. This ability to let go changed me internally and the constant depression I felt subsided. My experience in the ever evolving world became new.
I am not the same woman I was, I have the ability to transform, to grow, to become…
Flower Power
I sketched it. I went to the market and bought flowers. Grant shot me. It’s just that simple. Act, play, and create.
