639. Reconciling with the Artistic Expression In Me

 

It’s been a while since I shared a blog. I’ve been on a ‘writing diet’ where I write at least 3 pages on a daily basis in my personal diary or notebook which is something I begun as part of a process I’m embarking myself on to reconcile myself – yes, once again and yes embracing the process – with my artistic side or artistic interests which I’ve been basically focusing on investigating and aligning throughout these past months. I’ve been realizing some of the most ‘shady’ aspects that I’ve allowed to get in the way of me continuing to express myself and I decided to write self forgiveness on these points along with some realizations and share them, since I’m aware many can be at a similar situation with any given aspect in their lives too.  

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize I created a sense of being unworthy when it comes to expressing myself through creative means simply because of being told that no one would buy that, no one would like that and that I had to do stuff that most people liked in order to be paid for it, which then became a way to constantly create a hellish experience within me while creating, having to satisfy these invisible people that I believed I had to please and within that, causing that split within me where expressing myself in a more intimate and unconditional way – as it was in the beginning when I started – became a thing of the past and I then had to ‘use my skills’ to ‘be bought’ by others, and in doing so eventually wanting to once again distance myself from doing anything creatively.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to hold a negative experience to the idea of my work being valued in a certain amount of money where I’ve judged such amount of money as ridiculous and just not worth the ‘thing’ that I created, which I then believed was something good or positive but slowly with time I allowed that notion to sabotage me from continuing to create because I then would be having to ‘think in money terms’ when creating, which became a departure from myself – because art for me was not intended to be a ‘product’ but it was a very personal, unconditional and dare I say innocent form of expression with and for myself that I then allowed to be influenced on ‘why I do it’ and ‘what kind of stuff’ I should do, missing out the point of it which has always and should always be Me and the process I’ve been walking, which is what any form of expression for me is really about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a silent inner war in relation to art and monetary value where I slowly but surely sabotaged myself from creating anything as a way to not have to see it as a product – instead of seeing that I could have simply realized that I was  attaching some monetary values to something that should be first of all a point of self-expression and communication, where an economic value would come only if and when I would decide to offer it for selling it and only when and if there could be any potential person interested in buying it, therefore leaving all of that as a secondary purpose to it, not ever forgetting that my main purpose and value is for myself, for my own satisfaction, expression and enjoyment – otherwise I now see I corrupt myself by thinking in ‘money terms’ other than me expressing me and sharing unconditionally.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize that the moment that there was a struggle in my head because of having others’ opinions, views or expectations of ‘what I need to create’ I should have stopped and not allow myself to go there, since that is not the reason why I signed up to do anything creative in the first place, I did it as a point of curiosity and exploration for myself, to communicate myself with myself and then it became something I would have to do as a profession to be paid for and satisfy others with it, which is not a ‘wrong’ thing to do either, but that’s not where my true passion is for in it.  I totally buried myself under those ‘expectations’ I projected upon myself even when I believed I was doing something ‘for me,’ I would still be having ideas of ‘having others liking it’ in the background and in that, I corrupted my own expression which I see has of course nothing to do with the ghostly voices in my head of ‘others eyes’ on it,  because they were entirely brought up by myself and it then became in a bundle of  fears around it that I now see I used as a justification to not continue doing anything creative for a while.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to many times create a dissonance, a split between ‘what’ I had to do instead of asking myself who do I decide to be and according to that direct myself, because of having fallen on the usual ideas where I would have to choose one thing to become ‘something’ in life– like having a certain title, career or diploma – in order to perform certain tasks which show me the extent to which I have been mostly perpetuating the same kind of labels and boxes wherein we have defined ourselves to be just ‘one thing’ and only be that ‘one thing’ throughout a lifetime, instead of opening up the endless possibilities that are in fact possible if we tap into that source of what and who we really are and so expressing that into any aspect of our lives, regardless of ‘what we do.’

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to split myself between the idea of supporting others and making that my living purpose and my own natural tendency an d interest on artists and artistic creations as a source of both enjoyment and understanding to me, and in doing so, I ended up creating a division from this natural expression and judging it as selfish, as a waste of time, as shallow or without any consequence in others’ lives, without realizing  that in doing so, I was cutting up, chopping off a part of myself in such judgment process wherein I then created a constant push and pull friction game towards that inclination that emerged from a very young age in me and that I judged later on as frivolous and part of my ego-creation.

I realize currently how yes from a very innocent and instinctive move to paint and draw, I then turned it into a an expectation of making it my profession and then buying into the idea of that having to be my way to ‘climb up the ladder of success’ and feed my ego with dreams and ideals of fame and recognition, where – even though I had the idea of ‘doing so to help to save the world’ – the motivation was still the aggrandizement of my own persona, which is why I then took myself to the opposite side of not wanting to show what I do, not wanting to share it around and judging others that would dare to do so as egotistical or seeking others’ approval, which only stands as my own projection of my own judgments and what I’ve done towards myself, which I realize is a product of tainting my expression with the norms and ways we have created the current system wherein art has also become an industry which is not wrong in itself since it can be considered work itself, but to me art does go beyond the ‘final product’ but I’m definitely more interested in the person that is behind the work of art which is where I see that lies my interest on the artistic field.

I forgive myself  that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to taint my expression with the ideas of ‘what I would have to do’ in order to sell or in order to have other people like what I do, which I realized has been a rather painful process considering that it doesn’t mean I have to make money out of what I decide to express in a very personal way of communicating with myself, which I can share unconditionally without having to make it ‘fit’ certain market standards or having certain ‘qualities’ which is what I’ve then come to experience an inner conflict with, because my aim is to use art as a way to communicate and to see myself, to understand and learn from myself and enjoy while making it and making that very personal and sacred moment where it’s just me expressing and communicating with myself.

I realize that the moment that I place ‘others’ or ‘the public’ as the ultimate outcome, I distance myself from myself, I move away from that very core point that got me into wanting to create art in the first place and it becomes a job, something I have ‘to do’ for money or to be able to be ‘sellable’ and in that, losing my own essence and shaping myself into whatever I am believing ‘others’ want to see and get from me, which is entirely created in my own mind and as such, there has never been ‘others’ or any form of exigencies, it’s all been me allowing my own judgments and ideas to influence and maim my own creativity over the years .

I realize that the various comments and opinions I got over the years were all standing as expressions of their own views and standards, and to me they represented moments where I would have had to fully stand as my expression – but I didn’t. And that’s why every time I would succumb to certain demands, I would feel a little more lost in it all and ended up feeling meaningless and purposeless – shallow – in the whole process of making anything related to art, even doing any form of indoor decoration because of then tainting it as shallow, superficial or non-substantial or supportive to life itself – defining ‘life’ outside of myself as ‘others’– instead of seeing that I am the source of it and the ultimate end point of it, if it exists in me – and me being part of the whole – there should not exist any limitation to this point of expression that is intended to see ‘what comes out of me’ as an individual, simply to see ‘how I am doing’ and express it in ways that I may not be able to do so through words at times, and so seeing that it has been essential for me to draw and paint things that are just inside of me and come out as an extension of myself, that are devoid of a certain ‘receptor’, which I consider is the actual essence of what any form of art is, an externalization of the creator because of the sheer will of the creator itself to have it happen or just ‘be’ for its own sake.

In my case I have decided to make of that art not something that I ‘have to do’ but something that I can decide to express as part of my self-communication, self-enjoyment, the creation of that me-time that I now know I have to give myself and create for myself since I have shaped my life and time around all of the other doings that I require to do as a way to survive and as a way to relate to others, which simply require a balancing point so that I can in fact give me and create more time to do it and stick to it the same way that I stand in a disciplined and responsible manner to any other responsibility and duty I have.

I realize that If I cut out this limb of mine, this part of me that has continued to be a relevant aspect of my life, I’ll end up feeling forever frustrated for not having had the guts to give myself the time and courage to do it, to make it actually OK and acceptable that I create time for me to continue developing any form of creative expression that satisfies that self-communication and self-understanding beyond the usual self-writings, because that stands as something that can break the mold of what I regularly do on a daily basis and what I dare to say to myself through words only.

I also understand the importance of creativity, it is that ‘creative germ’ that is needed in all of us if we truly want to ‘break the mold’ and create a better world because otherwise, as I’ve seen for myself, we can just fall into the comfort of how things usually are and have been and not having any new things or challenges coming our way and getting too complacent and obedient to whatever we have all collectively come to believe is how ‘we should live our lives.’ And I know that it takes courage and a real sense of authority and will to decide to not fall into such expectations and categories and live differently, which then doesn’t become a constant ‘against the flow’ rebellious type of process as I used to do it before, but it becomes simply living the realization that this is the actuality of myself that is no longer seeking to be liked, appreciated or conform or fit in, but embraces that individuality devoid of judgment and expectations, and simply decides to get back in tune with myself, to be ‘here’ rather than seeking to be somewhere else or be accepted by others here or there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to maim my own authenticity whenever I allowed others’ comments, opinions – or the lack thereof – about what I do creatively to affect and define the way that I relate to my works of art, where I then stepped into the realm of valuing opinions and judgments and forgot to look at myself, asking myself why is this important or relevant for me to do, what it means to me and why it satisfies me or not to do it.  

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to become too concerned with monetary values and I realize that it is not about saying that selling my art is wrong or an act of self-interest, but that should come as a byproduct of me first standing fully in absolute congruence with my creation, where I can be sure there isn’t any noise implied in its creation while having thoughts about possibly selling it or thinking what colors would be liked more by ‘the majority’ of people, or what kind of stuff would be ‘easy to appreciate and like’ and hang on a wall or have around – and instead focus on simply being me, expressing me because I can see how I have been living that within myself and I have stood up when realizing I’m about to enter into a ‘shaping’ process that doesn’t respect me – but I haven’t done that with my own artistic expression.

I realize how easy it is for me to get into that shady space of not sharing or showing myself, all having to do with holding ideas about ‘who I am and have been’ in relation to a particular ‘personality system’ of having been placed in the spotlight at a certain time in my life, creating and building expectations upon myself that I then couldn’t fulfill because they, of course, came from a place of separation, of arrogance, of superiority and idealism that can’t be in fact satisfied because it’s not coming from the truth of who I am and who I want to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define me according to people’s opinions and values given towards me, where they all in fact felt phony to me ever since being a child and receiving accolades, it became a great nuisance to be told all of these good things and being praised where I eventually wanted to ‘not be singled out’ and hide in the background, to not stand out and in doing so,  I ended up diminishing myself because of having created a negative experience to being the source of opinions and critics, even if they were favorable, it seemed unfair and unreal for me to be able to define someone based on numeric characters or only a few characteristics that were ‘worthy’ within a particular system, like in schools.

That’s also why I wanted to do something that could enable me to see myself outside of values and titles that we are supposed to get in society, that define ‘who we are’ and that’s why I started doing what I did within an artistic expression – that I later on ‘vandalized’ with adding all kinds of judgments, opinions  and expectations to it and I perverted it and turned it into just another ‘thing’ that one ‘does’ in the ‘system’ and that’s it, it’s like taking the life out of myself by turning that which was once very personal and unconditional and a point of enjoyment to me and turning it into a show ‘for others’ and to find ‘my value and worth’ in society, which I then failed to do as I should, because it would have led me down to another rabbit hole if I had been successful at that.

I also realize that it’s not that ‘others’ are the problem in fact, since they are me. In any case each person stands as a good mirror where I can look back at myself and see what I can learn from it to either expand  myself or try out new things, without any longer seeking to be liked, accepted, valued or appreciated that way, because I realize that such values are in fact standing only in the eye of the mind and can only serve a way to ‘see’ things, but it’s only me that will ultimately know WHO I am behind WHAT I decide to do, whatever it is.

I realize that we lose ourselves many times in the eyes of others and allow ourselves to get quietly and deeply hurt and don’t dare to speak it out in the moment, because of fearing to come through as sensitive or immature – but opening up about those aspects that were impactful for us is the first point, to realize that many times there have been assumptions, misunderstandings and a general projection of who each person is in relation to their opinions and comments. I realize that I also have been able to consider certain constructive aspects from what others say about my work, but even with that, I realize I have to define what I will accept and allow as feedback and what I won’t because to me, artistic expression is that one sacred place where no others’ ‘laws’ or ‘ways’ apply and where I can in fact transcend myself and my limited views, beliefs and morals. I desecrate that space, that part of myself every time that I use someone else’s words as a reason or justification of why I should do something a certain way or why I should just give up trying to do anything creative.

I also realize that in my mind I have been the only one that has decided to give such amount of focus and attention to what others may or may not say – critically and constructively – and that I am the only one that can allow that to affect me in a negative or emotional way.  I realize that as one goes strengthening that sense of self-worth, self appreciation and being congruent with the expression of ‘who I am’ and ‘who I decide to be’ and what I focus on continuing to create and express no matter what may come my way, it should not change who I decide to be in that expression.

I can use the feedback  to make myself grow and expand and consider other perspectives, but reacting negatively towards it is entirely a self-created decision that I now realize I have the total capacity to work through and release myself from, which can leave me with a better understanding of who the other person is in their words and their way of seeing things and their relationship to what I do, but ultimately to not take it personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my own expression, the unique actions and movements and expressions that I have to any other human beings’, which has led me within a never ending unfulfilled experience where I became the outflow of my own judgments and allowing that to maim my creative expression by giving up on it.

I realize we all – each one of us – is part of the whole that expresses in a unique way, which doesn’t make it more or less than or ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than – it is about embracing the multiplicity and learning to see it as that unique expression that it is, where I realize that I have made and turned myself into my own worst enemy when constantly deciding what is ‘good’ or not in my own eyes and then ending up projecting those judgments towards my own creations, which results in self-sabotage.

Currently I realize looking back how what I’ve done just IS and they are all testimonies and registry of the various phases in my life that I don’t have to feel ashamed of, since they were a relevant and important aspect of who I was at the time, a part of me, a reflection of me in that space and time and if I don’t embrace and accept myself and decide that such expression had its right to be at the time and represent me, who else will? No one.

I realize that my curiosity and general inclination towards some artistic expressions like music and visual arts have been a form of food for my beingness, which at some point I tried to simply distance myself from within the belief that they were just distractions or my own way to ‘escape’ from my reality. And I realize that at times, it might have been so in the past, but I surely realize that is not my starting point at the moment but the other way around.

I now see the potential in art and artists as part of what’s worth living for in this world, because I’ve gone from loathing humanity to appreciating every person that I get to know more about and seeing a lot of valuable things that I can learn from which I’ve come to do through watching documentaries, reading about artists lives and any creative genius, which I ultimately see as one of the reasons why I want to continue being me and developing my expression,  not only to support others but to get to contribute back in the ‘creative pool’ from where I’ve been nurturing myself from as well, because that’s how I’ve gotten to appreciate the life that is in each one of us and that manifests in all of these multiple ways that are worth getting to see and appreciate for who and what they are.

My starting point is not to feel ‘original’ since we are ALL original since we all come from the same and one origin point that we all express in a variety of ways that actually makes this life worth living and so, it’s absolutely worth getting to know one another and getting to connect with those that may be walking a similar path and living purpose to the one I have, which I’ve seen is quite feasible as well.

My current starting point to develop myself in relation to any form of artistic creation and developing communication and comradeship with fellow artists is because it’s proven to me how this particular sector of people in the world that, according to how I see it, dares to live ‘outside of the norm’ within their minds and so in their lives and dare to share that in any way that reflects their inside world, that reflects their particular inner experience are the front runners of changing the way life is lived and how new structures and ways can be created that benefit more of humanity and life in general.

 I’ve seen how easy it is to connect to that same common sensical level with people that are working or have experience in any cultural or artistic field, we just can click in one moment because there’s that same or similar understanding of who we really are and what’s worth working and living for in this life.

I was discussing with my friend about art in itself and it got me to think how I don’t have a particular fondness for certain works of art based on taste, but I surely get to appreciate the ‘who’ is behind that work that got to master themselves to put in the practice, effort, dedication and willingness to do something that perhaps was completely ‘out of their norm’ and did what they had to do in order to get it out of themselves and manifest it as a creation in reality; some others might have done it from a more natural talent that they just could effortlessly express, but in either case, there is a willingness to express and to me that is implying that there is an awareness of the creative potential we all have and can use to benefit our lives. How?

To me it is a primordial and basic point of nurturing your being, of expressing and so sharing it if one’s up for it. They are all bits and ways in which we go stepping out of the ‘usual patterns’ and dare to cross our own limitations and in sharing them, we assist others to do so as well. I also had to let go of the ideas of wanting to share or inspire others or wanting it to be ‘seen’ or ‘liked’ by others. It’s very similar to this process and writing where, whenever I place myself in a position of wanting to ‘share with others’ I miss out myself as being my own point, my own source, my own end of such creation. So now, If I find it supportive, then sharing becomes simply an extension of that self-support being in fact something that I see could benefit others because it is benefitting me.

This is where I can decide to own me and my every step of the way in my own creation, which I also relate to the way I’ve been able to own my decisions and choices in life and all the mistakes I’ve made, because they now make me who I am and I can look back and see that they are all part of the building blocks that I can now constructively use as part of the experience that makes me who I am today that may become stories of support to share to others as a way to learn from my own doings and wrongdoings and get to express the better version of ourselves.

 

Thanks for reading

I absolutely recommend listening to this series to anyone that’s interested in this kind of topics and specifically feeling meaningless, purposeless or feeling like there’s something yet to satisfy within oneself as a living purpose

1. 
   

   Meaningless: The Undefined Self – Atlanteans – Part 346

2. Meaningless: Searching for Meaning – Atlanteans – Part 347

3. Meaningless: Redefinition – Atlanteans – Part 348

4. Meaningless: Self Forgiveness Challenge – Atlanteans – Part 349

5. Meaningless: Standing as a Self Directive Principle – Atlanteans – Part 350

6. Meaningless: Giving Yourself Meaning – Atlanteans – Part 351

7. Meaningless: Fulfillment – Atlanteans – Part 352

8. 
   

   Meaning: Finding Meaning in a Cruel World – Atlanteans – Part 353

 

 

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577. Creative Expansion

Or reflecting on the nature of absolutism and how to learn from others to transform it into a supportive expression

I had a laugh with myself while listening to this audio here My Life of Absolutism (Part 3) – Life Review because I tend to do so when something or someone reflects me back to myself in such an accurate way, and it also can be a temporary way to cope with the blunt image of myself through someone else’s words to then take it through an actual assimilation of what that description of this person as being an ‘absolutist’ means and the consequences it created in his life. I could see myself in his shoes and even wondered that if I had been a male, I would have probably taken it even one step further just like he did towards people.

An interesting thing that has also been quite present for the past month or so is my relationship with people that to me represent the opposite of ‘absolutism,’ people that are more ‘free flowing’ or have learned to stand in the system yet ‘twist it from within’ and not in an antagonistic manner, but more like being able to stand within it/as it and change it from within or assist in reflecting back the nature of the system in a fun way evidencing that there is something we have to change about it within ourselves.

I’m talking about artists for the most part and how there are times when I create specific ‘fixations’ towards certain artists/people/individuals that appear ‘attractive’ to me but not in a physical attraction mode only, but more in the sense of looking at the words they rare living and expressing in how they live/who they are, at least in anything that I have access to at the moment.

I noticed that I created this same experience towards an artist called Morten Traavik, who to me initially appeared to be quite the ‘absolutist’ kind, very frank, direct, diplomatic yet almost ‘militant’ in how he approaches things but not within the context of aligning to ‘how things are’ but in the context of transgressing the system, without opposing it but ‘hacking it from within’ with a lot of finesse so to speak. He’s managed to create artistic projects with North Korea who are supposed to be this very closed-up and censoring nation, and has managed to create artistic events between his country Norway and North Korea, all of it through him creating relationships of trust over time with the people there. He said something quite interesting in one of his talks “if real dialogue is what you want, then you have to be prepared to learn from people you don’t like” and

“If you really want to test your own limits of tolerance and to try something new and something fresh, deal with somebody you would not like to deal with”

A lot of what absolutism represents to me is a unilateral perspective on what I’ve believed is ‘my way’ as ‘the right way’ and ‘how things have to be’ where I’ve invariably created a counter-part that I’ve then by default defined as ‘the opposite’ of everything I’ve stood for, and I didn’t realize how I was ‘by default’ again creating this separation by becoming absolutist in my ways.

The reason why I didn’t question this before is because I judged the things I stood for as ‘the right ones’ as the ‘noble ones’ and the principles that ‘everyone should stand by and live for’ which made it difficult for me to realize how I was in fact at the same time becoming rigid, unilateral, constricted and limited within such militant stance – not that the word ‘militant’ is ‘bad’ either because I found there is a way to live it without the ‘absolutism’ in it, which at the same time leads me to say that it’s not that absolutism cannot be redefined either, both words can be lived in a supportive manner which I’ll get to explain later on.

So, what does that ‘attraction’ represented to me in this time of my life? And I have to here outline that it’s not the usual kind of attraction as it’s usually experienced, but it’s more of a curiosity to want to know more about the person, how they got to be ‘who they are’ and express/live the way they do, which to me is a representation of self-trust through having had a lot of experiences of ‘going for it’ to create things and finding out what works, what doesn’t work, but overall Daring to do so, which is something I’ve been writing about. But I find it very useful to take on examples from other people living certain words in their lives to see how they ‘got to do so’ in practical terms. That’s how I’ve transformed a merely superficial experience of ‘attraction’ into actually getting to see what words that person that I am creating this experience towards is living that I can integrate and live for myself as well.

I wanted to share about Morten because in the way that he works and how he relates to people, he’s quite political in nature and I can see myself having similar stance and ways, yet he is not standing within the ‘current system’ of politics as is, but has taken his current position from within the system to hack it, to use it to expand its horizons, to expose it, to transgress it and to me that is quite innovative and takes a lot of guts.  

I would very much like to do something like that, maybe not in ‘the same way’ he’s managed to do at those political and diplomatic levels, but in my own context and current living situation, while also considering potentials for the future in it.

I got to know of him through watching the Laibach documentary going to play in North Korea called ‘Liberation Day’ which I definitely enjoyed, more so from the perspective of what this whole event represents ‘for the world’ in politics and culture and seeing the role that the film’s director had in it all, which is Morten in this case.

The band in itself represents an artistic mirror for fascism by becoming it, not going ‘against it’ but fully embodying it to then make art within/as it and expose it to itself. I consider that’s been quite a unique way of doing art and that’s how I’ve also looked at words like absolutism and militant which somehow I can resonate with a lot, but not within the context of the actual control they imply to limit, to exist in fear, to dictate, but more as expressions I can use to stand as that resolve, that rotund expression of life, of ‘this is who I am and what I stand for’ without standing ‘against’ anything or anyone, but learning to embrace and be flexible in it all at the same time, which may sound contradictory in theory, but that’s where the challenge begins, to stop seeing things ‘black or white’ and instead live words, aspects of words, what’s best for the words within a supportive starting point. It’s like learning to transcend those limitations created through those words/concepts by using them at the same time. I can live those words in a supportive manner as well.

What this artist represents to me is the courage to do what no one else would have maybe dared to do, to transcend limits that have been imposed through politics and cultural definitions and directly work with the people, establishing relationships with ‘the unthinkable’ which is represented in the quotes I placed from him above.

To me those are key words because I’ve become so used to ‘follow my own lines’ that I know I am limiting myself in my self-creation process if I only think in those ‘usual terms’ and that’s definitely the challenge here for me: to step out of ‘myself’ and see reality with a different pair of eyes, which means, stopping living in an absolutist manner where I think that ‘where I am and how I am is the right way and with the right principles and there’s nothing else to look at discovering or changing’ which of course also makes my life boring, because I am creating my own stagnation if I don’t dare to challenge even those tenets that I believe are ‘who I am and will always be’ by now… now that’s really pushing the envelope to me and even writing about it a little bit of an experience wants to emerge in the sense of saying ‘”Nooo! you can’t do that!” But who decides, really, who’s the real policeman in my head?

I have learned from innovative and ‘ahead of our time’ people – mostly artists – that in order to get anywhere, one has to dare to do things that would have been conceived as impossible or ‘out of the norm’ or ‘going against the tide’ by most – but without the antagonism in itself, because it’s not about fighting the system, not about just criticizing it – but having the cunning ways and skills to be entirely and fully into it to step into that self-authority of being in it but not of it, which is what I’ve seen Morten has managed to do with his art and projects, getting to speak  to certain ‘authorities’ in events about politics and culture and stand in the podium and make everyone question if the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ is in fact a paradox lol – that’s the kind of people that from my perspective we all need in all areas/spheres of our lives and this world, daring to have some guts to stand in those ‘echelons’ and speak things as they are, and that involves some words like courage, understanding, confidence, self-trust, frankness to express that, without holding his own views as ‘the right ones’ but in fact mentioning the importance of learning from each other for growth and expansion – his own words there.

I’ve never stopped referencing people that I’ve come to ‘admire’ or ‘be attracted to’ in order to see what words are they living that I can integrate into my own life and live it as myself. And most of them are artists or creative people in the formal sense of the world, which confirms that I am at the right place in what I choose to continue forming myself as and being within the realm of arts, and understanding art as self-creation from the individual to the existential sense, and I am rather grateful there are human beings I get to know and have relationships with that have challenged myself over the years to step out of my own cocoon, because every time it has pushed me to see life differently.

I’d find it very difficult if not impossible to do that if I was ‘a man living on an island’ so to speak, being alone and this is when I am grateful for every person that dares to put themselves out there, their creations, their experiences that I can reference and learn from, be it through artistic expressions like arts, music, films, documentaries or sharing their own writings in walking through their minds and day to day experience. To me that’s one way where I go opening myself up from this absolutism and rigid ways in which I’ve come to exist and go embracing more ways, more perspectives that can assist me to expand, grow and develop myself to where I definitely want to be living in and expressing as in my life, which I have no finite or settled outcome for, because I will precisely be flexible in testing out various ways while having a ‘settled direction’ which is to support myself, to push my own limits, to find out ‘who I am’ in my decisions and choices, learn from mistakes and  live life that way in the best way I can create for me and so for others at the same time – no longer having this finite ‘idea’ about myself or ‘who I should be’ because that is absolutist in nature, it is restrictive – but have an open floor from which I can allow myself to flow with it, to learn to trust myself in it, to dare to do things, to not ‘fear’ and be scared of stepping out of my eggshell and really live life without fear, because that’s the point that absolutism represents to me ultimately, a dimension of fear as control that I ultimately have to let go of in order to really grow.

 What does living in an absolutist and militant manner mean to me currently? Being absolute in my resolution, self-trust and capacity to walk through/ live through something and find who I am in it, in a holistic way – not half-assed, but testing out something fully, to live fully in a way which can only be done from my perspective if letting go of fear. To persevere, to stick to what I plan on doing, to be focused and determined in creating something and getting to see the result of it as my creation and be responsible in it, to own it as ‘my creation’ for the better or to learn from it as a mistake. To be efficient and patient at the same time acknowledging the work and dedication anything in this creation requires, so that’s a way in which I can be absolute and militant in my stance, without the morals, the fears, the judgments and self-imposed limitations I had lived as before.

And how do I eventually walk out of this ‘fixation’ towards a particular person? Once that I start living those words/aspects I see them living and integrate them into my own life, so, that’s what I’ll do from here on within my own life, living context and capacity.

Thanks for reading and, definitely have a listen to these supportive audios to reflect back on one’s own absolutism and so see where and how one can start creating the first steps to expand and grow out from it into a supportive manner.

My Life of Absolutism – Life Review

My Life of Absolutism (Part 2) – Life Review

My Life of Absolutism (Part 3) – Life Review

 

 

 

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541. Creativity and Self-Creation

§  Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

 

This word right here is ‘close to my heart’ so to speak considering how I have previously conceived creativity in a rather limited way, linking it to artistic skills for the most part and traits within myself and others that would be geared towards expressing oneself in any form of art or doing something ingenious, witty or clever that serves a practical purpose.

However throughout this process with walking the tools of self-support at Desteni, I’ve learned to understand the actual depth of who we are as creators, created and creation, which might sound a bit too ‘out there’ initially – and it certainly does require a vast context that one can find support to walk through step by step in several series that can be found at Eqafe.com. Here I’ll focus on debunking this limited perception of how I can at times still perceive that I can be separate from my ‘creative abilities’ by defining that only related to ‘doing original work’ or creating a particular trademark in relation to artistic creations, instead of realizing that these are all results, the byproduct of a much more intricate and personal self-process of understanding self-creation and the actual ability we have to determine our lives and so our destiny, not only in creating something ‘out there’ but as ourselves, identifying ourselves as our own creators too and honoring that creative ability in our lives.

Here I am therefore giving a step forward from my initial approach to this word as seen in relation to ‘liking another person for being creative’ and taking this word back to myself, to see who am I as this word and how I am living it, what needs to be fine-tuned and what I want to continue creating of myself and my life in the context of being an individual that can stand as an example of what it means to honor one’s creation and one’s contribution to the whole that we are all a part of.

Perceiving that we are not the sole creators of our lives leads to a sense of disempowerment, of ‘atrophy’ in believing that we are always subject to our weaknesses, our faults, our ‘human nature’ in which in my experience can show up at times being very quick to judge things or determine that something is not ‘good enough’ and get doubtful about myself and the totality of what I am doing in a moment, tending to compare myself to others or get impatient in this process of self-creation. All of these aspects are precisely the points that I have to continue working on and being detailed about, because whatever we eventually create and manifest not only as things we do or create in the external world, but every single thought, word and deed will be ultimately influenced by the very core of our being, who we are in every moment of our day = what we accept and allow to determine ourselves in our minds and so in our reality.

What does that mean? I’ve noticed that if I for example accept an experience of pointlessness or defeatism within something that I am doing, and believing that ‘there’s no point for it’ and lose my ground and initial vision to create something in my reality, I am quick to ‘give up’ on it and then judge it as something that ‘just isn’t for me’ and consider that there are ‘others that are better at it, but not me,’ resulting in separating myself from a particular capacity that I simply had to keep practicing and working on, but was very quick to give up to, meaning I didn’t live perseverance on it.

I discovered this when painting last year – which yes, certainly this is what might be considered a ‘formal creative activity’, but I’ve discovered that interestingly enough it is the one thing that had become a point I separated myself from due to reacting to what I was painting and drowning into judgments of pointlessness, dissatisfaction, lacking a purpose in it, ending up losing ground on what I was physically doing as the painting. The outcome? A painting that I was dissatisfied with and that I used as an excuse to say ‘I don’t want to paint anymore, this is useless, it’s futile, I’m done with this, I’m not good at it, there’s no point to it, I just give it up’

What I became aware of within that process is how I created my own outcome in relation to painting entirely through having allowed these judgments, thoughts that translated into emotions creeping up and completely directing myself in that moment as I was painting. I also realized that my very starting point for painting was flawed, because in that one day I was using painting as a way to evade my reality and a particular conflictive situation I was experiencing with someone in my reality, but not dealing with it in myself – so I essentially created my ‘sabotaged outcome’ when attempting to create something while I wasn’t stable within myself  or ‘at my core’ in that moment, and using painting as a way to ‘evade’ instead of being there and create as myself. 

So, who was I as creator in that moment? Evading myself first of all, believing I could create a better experience through painting and forgetting about the inner conflict in relation to something else in my reality. This created an outcome of recreating all of my weaknesses of the past and bringing them through in my act of painting charged with all of these judgments and inner-annoyance that I allowed within myself even before painting and it eventually outflowed into what I ended up painting.

The painting itself stood there for over a year as a reminder of something I left half way through and as a statement of ‘this is why I don’t want to go back to painting again,’ which I knew was unacceptable, but interestingly enough I also procrastinated getting back at it.

A month ago I took that same canvas and reworked it into a different outcome that I decided to experiment with, mostly to precisely in real time work on changing my relationship to painting itself, this time being aware of having a clear starting point, being stable and grounded within myself and my decision and ensuring that I wasn’t entertaining backchats and thoughts of how ‘terrible’ it was or how ‘pointless’ this was, but instead decided that: this is me directing myself to express in this painting, being flexible and open to the outcome of it, not having a fixed idea on it and walking through that resistance that I kept ‘alive’ within me for a year or so to not paint.

While having this clear starting point, of course the ‘usual doubts’ that I had experienced in the past emerged, the notions of ‘I should be doing something else’ and various other judgments, but I decided to continue doing it anyways, continuing directing, not focusing on the ‘result’ only but rather focusing on ‘who I am’ in this whole creative process. And this can stand as a good analogy to our lives where many times we can be very ‘result-based’ and if we don’t manage to create what we want, we drown into a low, a depression, a giving up – instead of rather seeing what can we learn about ourselves in the process of creating ourselves, what skills do we develop, what challenges can we identify and practically work on overcoming? All of this makes any creative process much more enjoyable where we don’t only focus on ‘a result in the future,’ but rather focus on who am I all the step of the way to get to do or become something, which is what matters in the context of life.

This example is a way to illustrate how we are the sole creators of ourselves. If I in that past moment of painting defined myself as not good enough, as having a ‘bad experience’ while painting, then of course the outcome became a reflection on that and I would resist painting after those few hours when I started that painting – and I ‘gave up’  even attempting to do something about it and instead made of my experience ‘who I am’ by letting everyone know how pointless it was to paint, how I am done with arts, how there’s no point to it – lol – now having to eat my words and forgive myself for it because I realized how it was a way of throwing a tantrum as a result of my own self-created sabotage. It was like deliberately cutting an arm off and then believing that “I’m fine without it” This is not only about arts though, but it can be applied to anything else in one’s life.

Another example can be where I go into judgment about an expression in another and remaining with that judgment about another, not questioning, not seeing it as something I actually must debunk within myself and align within myself in order to stand equal to that person – and what happens when I remain in that judgment is I am in fact diminishing my capacity to get to know that other person, to really live the word equality and create that relationship that I can essentially establish with anyone in this world if I decide to create it and nurture it, because it ultimately is our creation: we decide, we make the changes, we live the corrections, we walk the talk so to speak and there one goes.

One can walk through a veil of judgments and into getting to know a person for real, which I’ve personally have experienced various times where there was an initial judgment toward them and through self-forgiving and stopping my participation in those judgments within myself- along with time and in a deliberate decision to get to know them better – I’ve proven myself how much I had ‘made up my mind’ about them and all that I would have prevented myself from creating if I had remained in my mind-patterns.

Self-creation therefore can be as simple as deciding to make a change about a behavior or thought pattern in our lives, we determine it, we decide on it and we ‘give it life’ by integrating such change or point of creation in our day to day living, and that’s precisely what living words is all about as well, where these words won’t ‘come up’ like thoughts or backchat in our minds as a ‘natural flow’ or ‘desire’ even to live and create  – nope, we are unfortunately not hard-wired to live creation as life, we are mostly hard-wire to self-sabotage which is illustrated in what I shared about my relationship with arts and painting when I allowed myself to be dictated by my mind, instead of standing as the directive principle.

My current relationship to self-creation is thus a relationship of self-discovery, self-awareness and ultimately self-empowerment, which comes also with the understanding that in being responsible for all that I am and create, it also gives me that certainty that no matter ‘what’ I create – if I make mistakes, if I ‘fall’, if I go the ‘wrong route’ in my choices, decisions and actions – I can trust myself that I have my self-honesty to assess myself and so do the process with self-writing, self-forgiveness in self honesty, lay out the corrections and stand up again to continue walking.

There’s no excuse anymore to ‘give up’ on something based on a ‘bad experience’ with something, I can instead practically assess what is practical to do, what makes sense to change as well as what’s practical to dedicate my time, breath of life and effort to, to be the sole director of who am I day to day – that’s self-creation right there and accordingly, we also then determine ‘who we will be’ because this reality works in patterns, so we essentially can re-wire or re-write ourselves by imprinting new ways to live from morning to night time, we can decide how we look at our day: a day to create or a day to ‘relive the problems of the past’,  we can decide to be solution-oriented, to learn to live words in moments where we see the emotions or self-sabotage creep up, to make that decision to stand up and be directive in the moment – all of these moment to moment changes and decisions are already a point of self-creation and this is precisely what this process is all about.

So, we are all creative, we all create every single moment –for the good or for the worse – and realizing that ability we all are constantly exercising and learning to honor it and act as creators with integrity, with self-respect and regard to life can truly be the way to change the fabric of the relationships we create in this world.

Also, I remind my-self not to be discouraged if things don’t work as intended in terms of change in a few first set of times, it takes practice, it takes diligence, it takes focus, it takes dedication and a commitment to self, which are all words we have to also learn to practice, live and integrate into the fabric of our very being, considering that they are also not ‘natural’ aspects in ourselves for now, but they can become part of us with the same diligence and consistency one applies to learn or create anything in reality.

We live in a physical reality, so patience is very relevant, persevering is the actual word here to look at which is also a timely reminder for me, to not lose sight of what I create on a daily basis and always see it within the greater context as well of contributing to create and bring life into the physical through my day to day living.

Sounds great isn’t it? But it takes actual work to do, so my only suggestion is to consider this creative capacity we all have and decide who we want to be as artists creating ourselves as our own masterpiece, one that we will live with and embody for the rest of our lives.

Thanks for reading

 

 

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531. Redefining Self-Confidence

§  Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

 

Confidence is the first word to look at and the aspects that I see I require to fine tune this word are specifically in relation to an experience of hesitation, doubt and uncertainty that I’ve been facing interestingly enough in situations where I cannot really reference something ‘with others’ and where I have to stand on my own two feet, make decisions and learn to trust myself within it, learning from it.

I’ve noticed how when making decisions in my life, I’ve become used to always asking or having other people as supporters or detractors of what I decide to be and do – this being a source of ‘confidence’ for me based on how I take others’ words and perspectives as an encouraging or detracting factor for me to venture into doing something or not, and here I’m focusing mostly in relation to my expression, specifically in arts.

The outflows of this self-doubt, uncertainty or hesitation emerge upon assessing options or paths I could develop within myself when having a literal ‘white canvas’ in front of me. What emerges is that I start considering what would be approved by others, what would be most liked or appreciated by what I believe specific people could say about it – and interestingly enough, this is where what can be called as a ‘lack of confidence’ comes in, where I am desiring a point of reference, a second view from another approving or disapproving something that is very much my own expression, my own doing.

I’m actually talking about painting here, hence the ‘literal white canvas’ description, because that’s what I’ve been taking on again and I started realizing why I became so unsure of myself in something like painting or anything art related, and it all boils down to seeking a form of reassurance from others that I was doing the ‘right thing,’ or how I stopped for example taking photographs because I started judging the fact that ‘suddenly everyone can take photographs’ and it’s no longer some kind of ‘special thing’ as it was some 10 years ago when I started doing that and got to be the most prolific on it.

Therefore I saw the constant: I am having a projection, an idea of what I believe would be ‘others’ opinions’ or the expectation thereof in my mind as an obstacle within me to not continue expressing myself. And this is entirely my creation, my expectation, has nothing to do with ‘others’ really. The same when I started considering more what others were doing and comparing ‘my work’ to that of others, and how I slowly but surely got discouraged of continuing doing anything related to arts, because of having ‘others in my mind’ and using that as a source of discouragement – of course, it all has been self-created.

Therefore I can say I lost confidence in a way when it comes to expression in arts specifically – but if I look at it, was my ‘previous confidence’ actually real? Honestly not. I had built such confidence some 10 years ago based on the praise I’d get from teachers, friends, relatives, fellow artists and I kind of ‘elevated’ myself based on others’ feedback, building such confidence with having a backbone of opinions and perspectives by others that I took as ‘real’ and as a definition of ‘my work, who I am.’ This bubble then had to be burst and for the best, because if we are to truly embody and live a word, it cannot be sustained by anyone else’s opinions and perspectives but my own.

This also has to do with being sometimes ‘hyper-critical’ about my expression in the context of arts or musical expression. Same applies to playing music where I see that a tinge of fear emerges when considering ‘playing bass again’ or making music with others, because I remember all of those past times with people where I took someone’s perspective on my playing as ‘discouraging’ and in essence, I allowed myself to fall into a ‘uselessness’ experience about playing music, deciding that ‘my thing’ were visual arts and not music – essentially I took someone else’s opinion as ‘my truth’ and within that limited my ability to continue practicing and expressing through music as well. And there is really no one to blame here because it was me that took those words as ‘the ultimate truth’ = I accepted and allowed it.

And it’s relevant to say I’ve been challenging those past obstacles within me and in practice lately. I can also see why I have refrained myself from continuing to work on my artistic expression – resisting it, in other words – and in general keeping this ‘love-hate’ relationship I’ve shared when it comes to arts and expression in my life, but I am decided to for once and for all stop my drama around it and rather tackle my relationship with my expression in that realm of arts but also in general when it comes to my physical expression, because this has been one of those ‘trees I left to dry’ within my life, using several justifications  such as simply ‘not enjoying’ or having not such a ‘great time’ whenever I would paint and judging it as pointless, pondering what’s the use, etc. But the truth is that there was a background of not being sure about myself in such expression, which means I had gotten so used to ‘being sure of myself’ based on continuing to get feedback from other people to then define that ‘I’m on the right track, what I do is good stuff, this is good enough, others like it’.

So, uncertainty, doubt, hesitation about my self-expression are the result of having based my confidence on perceived good/positive feedback on anything I did, and used such opinions, views and perspectives as some kind of ‘fuel’ for my expression – which then I allowed to completely determine (or terminate, lol) my decision to express, getting to a point of not doing much for the past years, using many reasons and justifications around it.

However I’ve now been able to see the actual reason for it, and it’s because of the personal confrontation I get while making each decision on a painting or a point of expression: I have no other point of reference, there’s no one I can ask and say ‘hey, how do you see it?’ and base my next move according to someone else’s opinion – nope. It’s all on me now and that’s what’s actually cool that I am taking on again, it is not even so much about the actual ‘painting’ and result of it eventually, but more so the kind of certainty, confidence and assertiveness that I have to live while making a painting and learning to trust myself with it, as it, which I had not done before except when I first picked up painting in 2003 and I did my first paintings entirely for myself, no one else was  on my mind to ‘make them.’ However, this changed as I started showing them around and expectations started building… which I have to definitely get back to myself and develop as a trust, a comfort in my decisions to express and do.

I was sounding this word ‘confidence’ and it also sounds a bit like ‘comfy-dense’ as in solid-comfort where there’s assertiveness, there’s trust, there’s substance yet comfort, flow, expression in it and this is what I want to keep focusing on and deliberately applying while expressing myself, especially when it comes to trusting my decisions, and stopping having what I believe are ‘others’ opinions’ in my own mind.

This will continue….

Thanks for reading.

 

Suggested support:

Confidence: Practical Support – Atlanteans – Part 152

 

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421. Art is in the Eye of the Beholder

 

I took this great blog title from Leila Zamora Moreno who gave it as a name for her son’s Cesar first masterpiece which I am going to share here because it’s his first year alive on Earth today!

We got a Pollock coming, people!

 

So, I watched a documentary on Marina Abramovic’s work called Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present and noticed how through watching it, I was constantly seeking for some kind of ‘meaningful’ thing to come through, something that could match my idea of ‘art.’ Through writing the self forgiveness I’m about to share, I realize that I had become this constant judge toward anything I’ve defined as ‘art’ and within doing so measuring/gauging it and see if it does match my idea of art as something that can ‘change the world’ and if not, usually I would follow through to judge it as pointless, useless, a waste of time, etc. In fact I had written out a blog about the documentary, but obviously noticed it was filled with righteous comments so as to impose ‘my perspective’ which then of course was a cool thing to do or else I would have remained within the idea/belief that ‘I was right in my assessment’ lol.

I also reacted when seeing people organizing performances and/or artistic creations around an ongoing situation here in Mexico about students having been disappeared/most likely killed due to a political point of convenience for a governor in one state here and then judging this as ‘pointless’ and ‘meaningless’ and then rehashing the judgment of ‘how come I can despise this ‘art world’ so much now and I once was so eager to be a part of it, where was I?’ – so here I go straight to Self Forgiveness.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to say to myself, how was I ever involved in this art/cultural realm and come to despise it so much at the same time? Which is only showing the usual love-hate relationship wherein of course any ‘negative’ experience is in fact denoting I still hold a relationship toward art, and as such, it’s all about ME in fact and not at all about art/artists or the art world at all – this is then the point of self-responsibility to expand upon here.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience remorse and embarrassment for having ever aimed at achieving an artistic career as I followed my desire to experience something ‘special’ through art and aim at ‘changing the world’ with it, which simply means that I was entirely driven by my own emotional and feeling experience and that this clouded my ability to see reality for what it is and genuinely question whether a ‘work of art’ has in fact ever changed people’s lives to the extent that I thought it would.

In this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge art as something frivolous or useless, wherein by defining it in such way I am then creating a negative relationship to it, but still a relationship nonetheless, so this is about me taking responsibility to ensure I no longer impose any ideas, beliefs, perceptions and reactions toward ‘art’ itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create yet again an experience of disdain toward people that are using art as a way to demonstrate the corruption and deaths of people here in Mexico, wherein now artists are gathering to create portraits of students that have been – most likely – sent to be killed by a high authority in one of the states here in Mexico, and so reacting with the experience of ‘this is utter bullshit’ and so having the desire to just curse at the people that believe that in any way doing a portrait or performance of and for the people that have disappeared will change their family’s grief or would in any way ‘solve the problem.’

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize that this ‘disdain’ is simply a tantrum like experience that comes after one had created certain ideals and expectations upon something, which is why one has such a ‘stance’ toward – in this case – art, instead of realizing that ‘art’ in itself in this case is not aiming at creating a tangible, physical solution, but simply a remembrance that some people might find supportive and that’s up to each person and how they react/interact with such artistic expressions – therefore

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become hypercritical to anything that has to do with art and aiming at bashing it constantly or whenever I can, which only demonstrates my own judgments and ‘false expectations’ created and imposed toward art, wherein I was trying to make of art an actual ‘tool to change the world’ but I realize that ‘art’ in itself as a manifestation and expression cannot do that at all – self change is and will always be here as ourselves, it is about who we are in our mind and in our actions, which in turn will define our creations as well.

 

I realize that in this, of course I’m missing out the actual self-forgiveness that extends beyond ‘myself’ only but as a human being that has lived in a world where pictures, emotions, experiences are the actual ‘drivers’ and/or ‘fuel’ of our reality, wherein the society of spectacle also involves creating this kind of ‘motives’ and ‘remembrances’ using art as a way to ‘heal the wounds’ or else, without realizing that in essence, art only works at a mind level and as such, it creates no solution to real-reality problems and in this

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge art for not being what I expected it to be, instead of realizing that it’s only me that tried to make it’ more’ than what it in fact is – in this

 I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to constantly try and fit ‘art’ into the category of a human creation that will in some way ‘change the world’ or ‘change people’s consciousness’ wherein in my desire to ‘fit’ art into this ideal, I’ve actually created such an unnecessary conflict within me, because I see that it is just impossible to do so, because nothing, no object, no image can ‘change you’ but only oneself in actually understanding why changing is necessary and how one can practically do it – in this:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get so infatuated with the idea of ‘change’ being able to exist within art, which you know in terms of the large scope of what art is, this idea of ‘change’ is already a limitation, a definition that is coming strictly from who I am and what I am walking in my life, which is very much aligned with ‘changing myself ‘ – thus, I have to stop trying to fit the world, fit people’s idea of art into my own.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be gullible and somewhat stubborn in trying to fit ‘my idea’ of art into everyone else’s artistic creation, which then of course leads me to only criticize, judge it, see it as ‘not good enough’ or ‘pointless’ or plain ‘bullshit’ without realizing that I’m judging it from my own point of view that aimed to make of art ‘something life changing and revolutionary.’ Therefore, I realize that I have to STOP trying to impose my own ideas of what art was supposed to be as a catalyst or a way to change people’s minds/lives and instead of trying to measure ‘all art’ against my own idea/belief and perception of what ‘art should be, I have to rather use all judgments as a way to continue checking what exists within me as an expectative or assumption around art, as this is then how I can use art or anything else as a mirror to continue seeing where I am creating experiences and separation from what is here.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to play out the love and hate relationship toward art, which only signifies one thing: there are still remnants of self-definition within me according to ‘being an artist’ or wanting to stick to that profession as ‘what I studied’ or ‘who I was,’ because in a way I still wanted to try and ‘save the profession’ as ‘my choice’ and having done so in absolute clarity and conviction within myself; and so this was my attempt of trying to justify my decision thinking that I wasn’t so ‘out there’ or detached from reality when I chose to study this – but, at the moment I can see that I was in fact not really ‘grounded’ on Earth 10 years ago when I made such decision and that somehow I am still beating myself for it, which is not necessary – therefore

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for having chosen what I now judge as some self-conceited and self-importance and absolutely self-indulgent profession as ‘art’ which in this is in fact only judging and ‘dissing’ that which didn’t ‘turn out to be what I expected’ and so, I realize that I have gone back and forth within this experience in the past of the ‘love and hate relationship toward art,’ but the problem is that I still tried to ‘suit my idea’ of what art should be in everything that I continue to see/watch and consume as ‘art,’ instead of realizing that I have to absolutely let go of the idea that I once held about art, let go unconditionally of my past choices in life, of my past ‘mindset’ and as such, stop any judgments around this point within me.

I commit myself to see art for what it is: a series of visual or experiential-based objects or images or actions wherein one is challenged to see reality with another pair of eyes and get to see reality from each person’s mindframe and perspective – thus to take it ‘for what it is’ as an individual or collective expression, instead of continually trying to see ‘where or how is this in any way changing the world?’ which is My idea of what art should be and the reason why this conflict still would emerge within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge ‘the past me’ as vain and superfluous for having chosen such a career and now in one way or another wanting to throw shit at it, which is not really acceptable at all, because art as any other action and creation that we do in this world, is part of what we also have to take responsibility for. Thus my way to contribute to it, is not to ‘bash’ something because it did not ‘fulfill’ my expectations upon it, but rather take the words that I had once associated with art / being an artist and live them myself in the way that I see is supportive and best for all.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to having said this morning ‘where the hell was I when I decided to study art?’ and say so with a sense of regret and disdain toward me and so toward everything and everyone involved in such practice, instead of realizing that if I did this same kind of reproachment for everything else that I see we have done ‘wrong’ in our lives, I would live in constant reproachment which is obviously not necessary at all as in that, we only trap ourselves in guilt and remorse, instead of focusing on what is required to be changed HERE.  

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see and realize that what’s hiding behind this is me not wanting to admit that it was my own starting point toward art that defined my now judgment toward ‘art’ which is not about ‘art’ but about me and how I was in fact living and acting in a self-absorbed manner and was seeking for the kind of things like fame, fortune, all the money and the ‘good life’ as well as bashing the system while earning good money, lol – so I realize that I have to simply admit to myself the kind of decisions that I made in the past, the reasons behind it and that there is no way that I can ‘turn back time and change my decisions and career choice’ because I do realize that the decisions I made in my past were absolutely ‘congruent’ to my mind-frame, my interests, my aspirations in the past and within this, I have to absolutely let go of me trying to ‘make sense’ of my initial ambitions and desires in life so as to justify them, and try and see them with a ‘good light’ so to speak, which is not really necessary to now super impose some ‘goodness’ to it, because that would simply imply that I am still judging my past life and decisions as something ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘self-interested,’ which is not really necessary once that I realize I have simply moved on from that phase in my life and my interests and aim in life have veered substantially from how I used to think 10 years ago, which I am of course grateful to myself for as well and for all the past moments that led to this realization.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project my dissatisfaction with my past choices upon every other artwork or artist I see and get to know of by judging their work and activity in all possible ways wherein I diminish it to being ‘pointless’ and ‘useless’ and taking this as a ‘fact,’ without realizing that all of these were only self-judgments that I have created around ‘art’ based on my own judgments toward myself and my past.

Therefore I commit myself to stop wanting to impose my idea of what ‘art should be’ upon others’ creations and simply redefine the word for myself to live as the actual creator of my life within the principles that I have established for myself of self-responsibility, self-introspection, self-forgiveness and self-correction as I see that this is what I have realized is the genuine way to do what I always aimed doing through art, which is changing myself and so with that, changing the world – therefore I hereby let go of the desire to ‘change the world’ through art  or attempt to make of art that ‘one point that changes the world’ which is also not ‘the point’ here.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to as a human being desire to do something ‘more than myself’ through objects, experiences, artifacts outside of myself and now judging art for what I believe or assume ‘artists’ are aiming to do, which is another judgment coming from what I used to do with art itself, instead of realizing that art can be used as a bridge for self-investigation, yet it is not ‘the change’ in itself at a massive level that I wished it to be at some point, as I realize that self-change and self-realization cannot in any way be something done through only one action, one object, one image and have an effect ‘en masse’ – there are no magic tricks on this.

 

I commit myself to stop judging art, artists, art collectors, art supporters and everyone that enjoys art and instead see ‘art’ within the realm of any other human activity that we do at the moment which means that everything we are and do is yet to be walked through a process of self-realization and self-correction, which means there cannot be something that is genuinely ‘supportive’ if there is no foundation to understand such support or what would be supportive to ‘change oneself’ or ‘change the world’  – thus I am the one that has to stop seeing art through the eyes of ‘practical change’ and/or ‘practical relevance for self-change’ wherein I then create a righteousness to create ‘negative’ judgments toward it, which is once again falling in the judgmental trap that leads nowhere and in fact then I would support the continuation of separation, reactions, judgments and division in the world.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think, believe and perceive that because I studied art, I have ‘an authority’ to bash it which is really only playing the same critique conundrum that I have also criticized in the past, instead of seeing art or anything else as just expressions that each one of us will have to take self-responsibility for, for the intent, the purpose and the experience within which it was created – thus, I am no one to judge anyone or anything for what it is, I can only reflect myself upon the world and thus take responsibility for my judgments, my experiences, my expressions ‘toward others’ and always realize it has nothing to do with art per se, with artists or with the artworks themselves, but with myself.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to still have wanted to control ‘my vision’ about art and so be able to ‘measure all other art’ according to what I had defined as ‘art,’ not realizing that this definition of ‘art’ is not even certain for people in art creation themselves. So, this is once again a point to show how when trying to ‘fit in’ one’s definition upon something/someone, because  each definition is created in one’s mind, it will always be a source of conflict to try and define something that in its nature is not meant to even be ‘defined’ as such, thus I see that my point of control was coming also from self-interest and still wanting to somehow remain with the dignity of having studied something ‘meaningful’ or ‘more than’ any other career, which would then lead me to play a value game that is once again of the mind and of consciousness definitions.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to still go and see art in the hope that I will find something that is ‘life changing’ which is why every time I obviously come out without ‘anything’ or ‘nothing learned’ because I am seeing it all through the eyes of ‘come on, art exhibit, change me, change my life!’ which is impossible of course, it would be like thinking that praying to the image of a god or a saint will change your life, which is simply a delusion.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for having ever been fascinated with creations because I have now judged this as ‘vain’ instead of realizing that just as anything that we create in this world, we can appreciate it for what it is in its physicality and no longer having the ‘artistic value-frame’ with which I was trying to measure it against, as this is once again trying to control and impose my own perspectives and experiences toward ‘art’ itself upon others’ creations. It would be like trying to define which human being is more ‘beautiful’ than another or which tree is ‘more expressive’ than another – it is really pointless and a waste of breaths to be dwelling upon this kind of questions, because ultimately if there’s something in art is that precisely this whole ‘valuation’ scheme is meant to be broken or questioned at least.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have judged this point as ‘petty’ or ‘non important’ or there being more ‘relevant things to blog about’ but, I realize that due to the actual judgmental view that emerged within me while watching Marina Abramović’s documentary and when getting to know of artists gathering to create something around people that have disappeared through political reasons, it was then a point to of course review and open up within myself so that I can align this one point within me and my day to day living and so stop the judgmental me toward art or artists as a constant source of conflict.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I have some ‘right’ to judge something because of having ‘studied’ it, which is essentially a belief learned from how our system operates with licenses and such, without realizing that a judgment will always be a judgment specifically when it’s made in an attempt to debase or ‘debunk’ something as to ‘make it less’ in a way, wherein then my judgment becomes in my mind something ‘superior’ to point out.

 

In this the application is actually to ensure that I can investigate all things and keep what’s best, instead of investigating all things, judge and criticize with an attempt to ‘debase’ something and then place my judgment as ‘superior’ which is obviously a destructive and consequential way of looking at things.

I realize that I can use anything and anyone in my world as a mirror, and in this, whichever I may think, believe and perceive relates to ‘another’ is in fact about myself, because I can only think/judge something about someone  if I have judged myself in the same way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I was in fact desiring to ‘take a position’ or ‘take a side’ in relation to art because of the self-definition I have created within and towards ‘art’ which is how one then creates a sense of ‘righteousness’ as in having ‘one stance’ in relation to it, which is all knowledge and information based, it is not at all considering what is common sensical or looking at what’s supportive within something – but instead, immediately putting on the ‘judgmental glasses’ and ‘finding fault’ eyes going into ‘attack’ mode to point out all the ‘flaws’ but all of these flaws are pointed out within the starting point of me already seeking to ‘debunk’ another, which is quite the usual nasty game that we play when we want to impose our own mind/righteousness, what we believe is ‘right’ above others.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to question the ‘impulse’ that I sometimes have in relation to wanting to talk about something/someone in an attempt to ‘debunk’ them while still holding a judgment with experience in it as to ‘prove it wrong’ – instead of realizing that I can talk about something/someone without having to resort to taking an antagonist stance toward it, but simply be able to reference it, to look at it in common sense and then  focus on reflecting any judgment back to myself, that’s the only way one can really develop self-honesty, and stop only criticizing things for the sake of feeling ‘righteous’ about something or someone and so justify my experience toward something or someone, in this case, my ‘experience’ toward art which shouldn’t exist at all as an experience.

In this it is to realize that any experience that I have toward something/someone, it indicates I have created a relationship to it, and so it becomes a point for me to take self-responsibility for which means: it’s never about ‘art’ itself, it’s about how I see it, who I am toward it and this is then a much more supportive starting point to look at art and visit art galleries, to see ‘what comes up within me,’ instead of visiting and looking at art from the starting point of ‘proving it wrong’ or wanting it to ‘match my ideal’ of art, which is why all this back and forth friction toward it emerged: it’s all an inside job.

 

I realize that ourselves as human beings tend to seek for answers or ‘find ourselves’ ‘out there’ instead of realizing that everything we require is already here, as ourselves. So in this, I commit myself to stop judging anything that we do/use in order to get to this point of self-realization, wherein I see that art can be used as a tool of self-reflection as with anything else in the world and what we create and do within it. This is where I then have to realize that my process and realizations cannot be the same as others’ and so, I have no authority to judge others’ processes, ideas, beliefs and perceptions – this process is about self-responsibility so here I then commit myself to always see art as a cool point of self-reflection wherein I stop all judgments ‘toward’ art or artists themselves, but rather see ‘who am I’ toward it and use that for my own process of self-honesty.

 

I commit myself to integrate the realization that everything that I judge or criticize in a judgmental manner is and only has to do with myself and the relationships I have created toward something/someone in my past, and so I can only look at things/people objectively where I can first identify if there is any reaction, take it back to self wherein I see the origin of such judgment toward it, do a self-reflective analysis on it in order to support me in common sense to immediately realize: I am imposing my past definitions upon this moment here –  and so I then focus on seeing, watching, reading and participating in anything related to art for what it is – no hidden agendas allowed within me.

 

For a review on the documentary:

• Podcast: Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present

 

 

 

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388. Regretting Choices and Definitions

 

Continuing from:

• 387. The Love/Hate Relationship with Art

 

Self Forgiveness on:

I require to open up – again – the relationship with art. I’ve noticed that I created some sort of past bad relationship experience with it, similar to the ones that I’ve had with people throughout my life wherein there were things unsaid, situations undirected and just cutting it up from one day to another without further communication. I realize I’ve done this with art creation and the general regret I’ve had in terms of the decision I took some 8 years ago to go to art school and actually drop out from my first choice which was linguistics and which would have probably been a lot more supportive for me to have as a degree than arts, and so there goes regret as well for the choices I made in the delusion of ‘I want to express myself ’ and limit that definition to only ‘arts’ and specifically visual arts. To begin with, a disclaimer here is to understand that I am walking/writing out my frame of mind and that whichever judgment I place here in relation to arts/artists/creative processes in art is what I’ve conjured up throughout time and self-reflection about my decisions in life and in no way does this imply an actual ‘bashing’ as all of these judgments, ideas, perceptions, conceptions will be self-forgiven.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience the moment of creating something as an image, a picture, a painting as something rather ‘pointless’ and useless in which ‘I have wasted my time’ and in this generating the overall idea that ‘doing art’ is a waste of time – without looking at how I began to define what I would do as ‘art work’ as ‘meaningless’ and ‘pointless’ when I began to understand my motives, my purpose behind ‘being an artist’ myself – wherein I wanted to Define ME according to my creation, according to every single drawing, painting, photograph, video or any other creation that would be part of my ego-construction as the ‘who I believe myself to be’ and all of this based on the premise of ‘me wanting to be famous’ or ‘me wanting to be recognized as special and unique’ and so, when the time came for me to debunk myself, my own ego-construction of ‘who I am’ as ‘an artist,’ then all of the experiences and definitions that I had attached onto painting, drawing, doing anything creative even with words, photographs, videos… all of it I then judged as ‘useless’ or ‘pointless’ because they were not going to fulfill My idea of what these things were meant to be doing For Me before, which was ‘building my ego.’ And as such, when I stop participating in the creation of my ego through my artworks and my so called ‘special vision’ I then create a polarity relationship toward my creations because I could no longer see them as unique or special or anything like that, and instead of seeing them just for the matter/materials and arrangements that they are, I went into an opposite experience defining these creations as pointless, egotistical and useless without realizing the polarity judgments I was creating based on having first defined artistic creations with all positive experiences such as a genuine representation and expression of who I am, and what I want to express to the world – which came with the imprint of ‘me’ as special and unique. So this is to identify the polarity relationship I created based on my own definitions

I realize that therefore the experience that I’ve generated toward ‘art’ in general doesn’t provide a solution to the problems in this world – and within this generalizing what ‘art’ is based on what expectations I didn’t get fulfilled for myself within the relationship formed toward Art itself, and this is how it is no different to how we can ‘call names’ to something or someone that doesn’t satisfy us based on the ideals that we created about it, yet I didn’t work on in order to manifest these ideals into reality either.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want ‘art’ to be and become this ‘tool’ with which I can ‘change the world,’ without realizing that I then caged myself within my own intentions, definitions and purpose I gave to ‘art’ in itself – instead of myself – and as such, when I saw that these aims and purposes were not ‘fulfilled’ in a rather noticeable manner or ‘short span,’ then I simply gave it up because I realized that there were other ways to make this process of self-change more tangible and noticeable other than paintings, drawings, little videos or else as these creations were mostly born within the intention of myself as ego, as the idea of being able to create a name for myself and be glorified by it and missing out the entire point that I now see is more relevant, which is not self-glorification but to utilize our skills, our talents to provide a key for others to start questioning reality and start considering another way in which we are able to live and as such, change the world in a practical manner, which begins within self;

I initially have had certain ideas imprinted within my decision to create art which were among others to evade the world – without realizing one cannot really do this – being able to become a special/unique individual with this amazing vision of the world – and within this, I decided to rather focusing on myself, my own deconstruction of the ego I had become and reconstruct myself as an individual that can genuinely be and become an example of what it is to focus on what matters in this world within the principle of doing what’s best for everyone, what can create and generate actual changes in this world and within this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define ‘art’ as being unable to do this, and this is where I clarify that it is not that ‘art’ in itself isn’t able to do the work, as it is ourselves as human beings the ones that are responsible for using whichever tools and means we have and see can be effective to share a message with others and provide solutions to our lives within our minds where we usually only see problems and conflicts.

I realize that I had delegated some kind of ‘magic power’ to art to be this transformational tool that can in itself ‘change people’s lives’ which is rather pretentious, non realistic and even with bits of spiritual approach that I had initially also commenced with in my relationship with art as well – therefore I now see, realize and understand that art in any of it forms or definitions for that matter, can be used as a tool to support the realization of ourselves as human beings, to portray the problems and the solutions that we can all give direction to – but in no way can I expect this ‘thing’ or ‘concept’ as ‘art’ to do the thing for itself, as it is Always about ourselves human beings being able to give direction to ourselves with using any and all means/media/methods and tools that are existent within our world and societies as of now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop a relationship of ‘hate’ and ‘love’ toward art – wherein I went in this form of ‘hate’ based on not getting my expected results from it, or being disillusioned from the results I was expecting I would get from it, which is once again wanting this something/someone create some transcendental change for me and others in itself, without realizing that I had to give it direction, make things happen, make things works instead of just hoping or wishing that something like an artistic expression does the work in itself – it can be an aid within the purpose of assisting and supporting ourselves as human beings to ‘wake up’ and realize the work that is required to be done in order to give ourselves direction and responsibility to our world which is our creation – and in this art is not more or less than any other expression or tool or point existing in our reality that has an equal potential of being supportive within our process of self-realization and self-responsibility as equals in this world.

I forgive myself that I had accepted and allowed myself to develop a relationship of ‘love’ toward art based on the Experiences I created within me while working on it: being able to be alone, detached from the world, sinking into my imagination, being able to just ‘forget about the world’ and recreate one of my own within the starting point of someday maybe getting real fame and glory from it, being recognized as this talented unique individual that I had believed myself to be and as such, believing that ‘my thing’ was to do art, just because I wanted to give continuation to this great experience that I was building myself as through the work I was doing.

Within this I realize that it’s not about ‘bashing’ what I’ve done or now see it as pointless or useless as those are all definitions I now see and understand stem from having remained in the polarity opposite of loving it, making it special and unique – so this way I am able to now stand one and equal to any ‘artistic creation’ or ‘artwork’ in itself within the realization that it’s no different to any other thing we have created as human beings – be it a concept, a tool, a house, a business, a baby, an entire world-system – all of these are creations that entailed a creative and intellectual process in them, so that doesn’t make them ‘art works’ per se, because we’ve defined ‘art’ within a specific ‘realm’ of human creations which is how we developed the whole ‘specialness’ around it, wherein if we genuinely expand creation to anything we do, anything we say and think, then we will genuinely live as self-creators of ourselves, our world without having to tag it as ‘work of art’ since it will be a creation within the principles that each one can recognize and embrace individually: self creation in self-awareness, self responsibility, letting go of the pondering process of the individual as ‘special’ and instead focus on our creative, physical abilities that we have as human beings – both physically and mentally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see ‘art’ as no different to any other failed relationship wherein it seemed as if from one day to the other I simply no longer have anything to do with the person or situation and without further communication or understanding of why we parted ways, it’s simply a ‘breakup’ of sorts wherein I have generated the usual experience of ‘not wanting to see the thing or person again’ and overall avoidance toward the point/person in my life as if that was a clear way to deal with it. I realize that this is mostly suppressing the problem, suppressing what caused the breakup and believe that just by not thinking of it or avoiding looking into the point I am doing myself a favor when in fact it’s the opposite – there more I leave it ‘unresolved’ the more it becomes this ‘confusing’ thing, a mulling around that I experience toward the point or person, because I hadn’t clarified or structured my position or stance toward that person or point in my reality and as such I turn it into something I had to overall try and ‘erase’ without further consequence.

I realize now that I cannot ‘hide’ from these type of situations that I believed I had ‘dealt with’ or I had ‘walked through’ in this process in relation to art – as I realize that I hadn’t entirely clarified the self-corrective process in relation to ‘who I am’ toward art or creative process done by myself or others.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to at times go into a diatribe of should I or shouldn’t I go to see this exhibition or movie or concert just because of seeing it as pointless, useless or a way to ‘activate my excitement’ without realizing that the polarity relationship of resistance was created because of all the definitions I had still held in separation of myself, such as the experiences I’d had when looking at certain paintings or movies or music – and within this believing that I had to ‘quit it’ no different to a drug that I had to let go for once and for all in order to not have to be ‘enticed’ by it once again and ‘get lost’ in it.

Now I see, realize and understand that these ‘fears’ of consequences if I would ‘delve’ into the artistic creation, were all based on the initial Desires I had placed or attributed to art and artistic creations of myself and others – therefore the sole creator of this inner conflict is obviously myself, my mind, my past habits and my apparent inability to conciliate my relationship with art to see it for what it is: matter, colors, sounds, images that I can look at in a way that is no different to appreciating or even enjoying any other part of this reality – and within that if an artistic creation can provide any support to this process of self-realization: that’s great, that’s a ‘plus’ point in relation to what I see is necessary for us to realize in this world – but, in no way does it mean that because an artwork, a film, or certain music aren’t related to a process of self-realization or ‘changing the world’ will it make it useless and pointless as those are solely my own beliefs, projections and even bitterness based on the polarity relationship I had created toward art in this love-hate paradigm, which is absolutely unnecessary once that I realize that it’s all about me letting go of still holding a relationship to art as something ‘special’ as that’s why I then kept separating ‘art’ or ‘artistic creations’ from the rest of the world and reality and people/beings in it, just because in my mind I have developed this judgmental filter toward anything that looks like, sounds like, works like something ‘artistic.’ Lol which is kind of funny and rather contradictory when understanding that separation is created by myself in my mind and I cannot advocate being one and equal to everything if there’s still a special love-hate relationship toward something or someone.

I realize that through stopping participation in judging/defining ‘art’ within a special bubble, then I can rather focus at looking, understanding and comprehending any part of reality including ‘artistic works’ for the human creation it is, for the intent it has and essentially assess that in the same manner and way that I asses a person, a person’s words, any other part of our reality, how we interact, how we create our relationships etc. And this is thus a way to stop holding the specialness-towards-art construct and start seeing it for what it is: another part of our world as our creation that we now have to take responsibility for it all ourselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to regret my decision to drop out of my initial first available career as linguistics as I see that that could’ve supported more in relation to processes of education and supporting others to develop effective language in a professional manner – and instead leave to pursue an artistic career that I mostly do not see myself as ‘following through’ with – at least not in such ‘artistic circles’ – because I’ve realized that I have now a direction that I’ve decided to take on in my life which has to do with being able to support myself and other individuals to become self-directive, self-responsible, self-honest human beings that can in turn no matter what we do, where we are, we are able to stand as living principles of self-creation that can be supportive in any field or profession in our lives.

This implies that I let go of the regret, guilt or shame for my choices in life, for the time I’ve perceived as ‘wasted’ or the ‘disillusionment’ that I created toward ‘art’ as a career in itself, which was all created in my mind and as such I take responsibility for it, to see it for what it was and now that I have such studies as foundation, I can also see what I can take from it, what I learned from it that can be implemented within the current process and direction in my life that I’ve decided to take on – and within this, understand my choices in life based on the context and time of my life when I made them. It is rather obvious that If the ‘who I am’ right now was ten years younger, I would have probably made different decisions in my life – however, also making those faux-passes have allowed me to learn from my mistakes and that this is actually stemming from fear of seeing ‘me as an artist as a failure’ because of not completing the whole ‘road to become an artist’ and so

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to actually create regret about my choices in life, without realizing that it’s actually stemming from me having wanted to ‘take the right road’ from the beginning, not wanting to fail, not wanting to be seen as a failure as an artist, or a drop out or vanish from other people’s lives as ‘she became weird and stopped doing art’ type of judgment as I see and realize that these are all judgments that I’ve created toward myself and that I now see, realize and understand that they have no point in being here ‘as me’ in my mind, because I am fully aware of the decisions I am now making in my life, being certain about the outcome and purpose that I am dedicating my life to and within this also not solidifying ‘the way’ to do it as something immovable or being non flexible in believing that ‘this is all I’ll ever do’ – as that creates a general rigidity that I’ve also seen the consequences thereof when I have to ‘break the definition’ or ‘break the pattern’ and kind of eat my own words and decisions. I realize that I am at a certain stage wherein the foundation of who I am, what I’ve decided to be and become as a person that stands as a living example of what it means to apply principles of life in equality, of self-responsibility, of integrity, of self-honesty, of changing one’s living patterns, is what I have decided within myself to do and live till the end of my life.

Now this doesn’t imply that I forcefully have to ‘fit’ my schooling-career into it or else, but see the multiple possibilities of what we can do and how we can apply our skills, talents and knowledge for self supportive purposes in this world, and step out of any rigidity within ‘having certain career’ only. I have also realized that the process I’m walking is that of self-creation: recreating myself after a deconstruction of who I have been in order to now integrate living principles that are supportive for ourselves as individuals that can now take self-responsibility for our creation.

 

When and as I see myself generating and overall experience of resistance or judgment or even rejection toward ‘art’ or ‘artistic expressions’ I stop myself and breathe. I realize that such experiences recreate my belief and construct of ‘failed relationship with art’ which only exists as a construct of memories, experiences, ideals and beliefs of myself toward art – and as such as I realize this I can immediately stop any judgment and experience toward the word ‘art’ or ‘artistic’ or ‘artist’ in order to see physicality for what it is, whether it is human beings, or matter with colors, or images, or sounds and images, or actions that are simply human creations that I can assess in a similar way in which I asses everything else and everyone else in my reality – no more, no less.

 

When and as I see myself experiencing guilt, shame, regret for my self-defined ‘failed’ choices in life in terms of careers and studies, I stop and I breathe – I realize this stems from the fear of being seen as a failure or a drop out which are only judgments I’ve created within my mind, the fear of not being ‘successful’ at what I was meant to do simply because I didn’t even follow through with it/ didn’t do the actual work to get that which is also another point to realize here how I decided to not invest myself on the traditional forms of art-creation and instead directed myself toward self-education within a context that is entirely new and doesn’t even have a proper ‘institutional name’ with which to ‘justify’ to others what I do now– without realizing that I don’t have to ‘be’ something/a definition for others as I am well aware of how I spend my life, my every day, what I work with, who I work with, for what purpose and what my aims are in it all – therefore I stop wanting to justify myself and my decisions toward others and focus on rather assessing and evaluating myself based on the principles, objectives and decisions I’ve made to dedicate myself to this process in the form of support, education, proposals for change that can be implemented at an individual and global level.

 

I commit myself to no longer re-create any form of pattern of experiences either positive or negative around ‘art’ or ‘artists’ or judge them as useless because of being ‘artists’ or such – as those are only judgments/tags in my mind –and instead see the point of creation for what it is, as a physical or intellectual creative process and as everything, investigate all things and take what’s best. So within this it is also to commit myself to make use of formal ways of doing art in order to share a particular message or understanding that I realize is supportive for ourselves as human beings in this world and necessary within the context of the changes that we require to give direction to if we want to continue living in this world. So within this

I commit myself to give priority to the points that I see are most relevant and a matter of survival when it comes to creating solutions to the problems in this world as that is what I have personally decided to do – working at an individual and collective level to present solutions, to walk them myself and so co-operate in the process of self-realization in our world. This is what I have decided to do which in no way it means that it is what I think everyone else should also do in relation to their relationship to arts as each person’s process is different and to me within the context I’ve placed it, stepping aside from the usual definition of ‘creating art’ also means focusing on being in the world, in the system, understanding it, redefining it, considering how to build our lives and our interactions in a more supportive way and not just trying to get an experience out of it as my previous definitions of art.

I realize that I can redefine art as what I do within this process of self-creation, but that is merely for academic purposes and in no way does it mean I am trying to justify or define the fact that I want to ‘keep being an artist’ but, If I have to justify what I do to academics, then for sure it’s self-creation process as my own work of art, while realizing within myself that a definition does not really ‘define’ or ‘limit’ who we really are, but I can play the role without getting lost in it again.

 

Will continue….

 

 

To learn more about the mind and how we can unleash our creative powers by integrating new living principles, check out:

• Desteni
• Desteni Articles
• Destonians
• Desteni Lite Process
• Desteni I Process
• Desteni Forum
• Desteni Wiki
• Desteni Español
• Creation’s Journey to Life
• Heaven’s Journey To Life
• 7 Year Journey To Life Process

387. The Love/Hate Relationship with Art

Here we go…

I require to open up – again – the relationship with art. I’ve noticed that I created some sort of past bad relationship experience with it, similar to the ones that I’ve had with people throughout my life wherein there were things unsaid, situations undirected and just cutting it up from one day to another without further communication. I realize I’ve done this with art creation and the general regret I’ve had in terms of the decision I took some 8 years ago to go to art school and actually drop out from my first choice which was linguistics and which would have probably been a lot more supportive for me to have as a degree than arts, and so there goes regret as well for the choices I made in the delusion of ‘I want to express myself ’ and limit that definition to only ‘arts’ and specifically visual arts. To begin with, a disclaimer here is to understand that I am walking/writing out my frame of mind and that whichever judgment I place here in relation to arts/artists/creative processes in art is what I’ve conjured up throughout time and self-reflection about my decisions in life and in no way does this imply an actual ‘bashing’ as all of these judgments, ideas, perceptions, conceptions will be self-forgiven.

 

The Illusion in this world is my responsibility

It’s been a bit over 10 years when I first begun painting and the experience within that was that of enjoyment when being able to pull out everything that I would usually write in creating these images/paintings that I then started defining as ‘who I am’ and within that, already beginning to define and limit my future according to wanting to be an artist, to be able to write or paint or play music or anything that had to do with what I assumed would enable me to express myself and at the same time, be able to instigate some sort of change in the world.

I’ve mostly walked throughout the years the ‘emotional’ aspect to art and my decisions to be an artist in order to not have to ‘be in the system’ and not have to face it, and not have to deal with a lot of people, being able to stand in the ‘background’ so to speak, like someone with ‘special needs’ or ‘special mind’ and ‘special interests’ hidden in a room behind some canvass or else, yet at the same time having the works themselves get to as many people as possible…. So that’s the type of idea of a nice, lavish lifestyle I was pursuing some 8 years ago, and I was quite on the ‘good track’ getting some initial points of recognition that also led me to see the ‘fame’ for what it was and really question myself if that is what I really wanted: to have some pictures in some room in another place in this world seen by other people and be glorified by how nice they are? Well, I decided it was not the way to do what I was already veering myself to do, which is wanting to ‘Change the world’ and thus using art as the way to change the world…. separation here, yes, in trying to use this one thing to ‘change the world’ without really realizing that nothing/no one can ‘change the world’ in itself, but ourselves.

 

So that’s where we begin.

The idea of Art as an instrument to “Change the World.”

The point is I tried to make My definition of Art fit with what would enable me to use it to demonstrate that it is possible to change the world. However I realized that no matter how many images I make, how many pictures I take, how many great ideas I would have I was entirely mostly having an imaginative outflow of how this could operate without ever really landing it into any serious/real project. I always kept everything at a low-fi level because right after the first year in Art school, I discovered Desteni and my interests veered dramatically – hence the ‘shutting down’ of any pursue to further my career to make a name of myself etc. However little did I know that as I’ve seen throughout time, many artists or creative people are the ones that have been able to conceive new ways of how to develop a society that is better for everyone. Somehow people related to art are at the head of certain movements like the proposition for a Basic Income by Enno Schmidt who is an artist. The example I’ve been able to see with a more ‘landed’ discourse on social change is Joseph Beuys that dared to propose an economic, political and social change through the realization that such change begins with self, using one’s thoughts and actions as the tools with which to sculpt ourselves and so becoming the change that we want to see in this world, by understanding the interdependent relationships we have toward one another and our necessity to establish a genuine economy that reflects the true inputs of the real capital – human work/intellect or applied intellect and the use of resources to provide a dignified living to everyone in a particular society/environment- which means everyone should be equally involved in this.

“Social Sculpture, a concept and medium the artist devised and later theorized in “I am Searching for Field Character” (1973), which articulates his belief in the creative capacity of every in-dividual to shape society through participation in cultural, political, and economic life. With his proclamation that “EVERY HUMAN BEING IS AN ART-IST,” poised to join others in the construction of “A SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART,” Beuys reprised the fervor and axiomatic language of manifestos written by avant-garde artists in the early twentieth century. This promulgation expanded what art could be by acknowledging the viewer’s ability to co-create meaning alongside the artist and, consequently, placed the production of art and knowledge within the scope of the viewer just as much as that of the artist.” – Joseph Beuys – Organization for Direct Democracy by Referendum

 

He went on as far as creating direct democratic referendums as part of his work of art and forming part of a political party, as well as founding a school that was aimed at providing the necessary platform for people to continue the work of social sculpture – which unfortunately I haven’t seen any further fruition from it. He also went on with economists and discussed the concept and idea/symbol of money and with that book ‘What is Money?’ realizing that the idea of social, political and economic change is not an entirely dissociated idea from an artist’s field of work. He also even funded an educational institution which is part of his legacy to continue understanding the multidisciplinary processes that education should involve.

It is so that having the ability to question more, to question reality, to analyze it in its complexity from the ‘eye of an artist’ can lead us all to become better social scientists,   questioning things that have become automated in our reality: money, politics, education, social structures, words and their definitions, mass media and its power to brainwash everyone… then I found people like Guy Debord and Marshall McLuhan who completed the narrative in relation to the world system as the reflection of ourselves, of our ‘revolutions’ as failed attempts to change something that first should be changed at an individual level – and this all made sense, I am grateful for having read these individuals to confirm what I was at the same time walking with/as part of Desteni as well as Foucault on his first chapter in Madness and Civilization about the Ship of the Fools or Stultifera Navis wherein every person that would be defined as ‘crazy/ mad/ eccentric’ would be ousted from society along with every other individual that would simply not be willing to conform to the norm or be defined as mentally insane. I could relate to all of this, however it was all still too defined within the ‘artistic realm’ and so what I did is that upon realizing that ‘art’ for now is ‘just another sector of society’ and almost another cult/religion in itself, I tried to dissociate myself from such tag just because I had judged it as pretentious and ‘special,’ because that is how I came to judge myself or who/what I was going to ‘become’ as an individual if I hadn’t actually stopped myself from upgrading and accumulating all of this definitions onto the ‘artistic persona’ I was aiming at becoming.

I’m also glad that I’ve done that because then the whole ‘specialness’ and ‘uniqueness’ idea of myself that I had about me and that I believed that I should be ‘recognized for’ in the world has been mostly vanished. But after that, there’s  a ‘void’  left in terms of the relationship to art/creative expression as I mostly simply stopped it altogether and wanted to have– apparently – nothing to do with it, which involved me having finished also school in Arts where most of the time I was already knowing that I wasn’t going to become an ‘artist’ in the most traditional sense of the word. I learned about many points wherein artists have participated in ‘revolutionary movements’ but certainly it is no different to how any artist at the moment goes out and paints murals about Snowden, Manning and Assange to glorify them as heroes and shouts at the front of some parliamentary building demanding change… which is absolutely futile.

 

 

So the disillusionment with arts have to do with My Own expectations about it. How I thought that this was ‘the way’ to change the world and of course I didn’t follow through with ‘becoming an artist’ in the traditional sense which I then perceived as myself already ‘opting out’ of it all and seeing the sheer idea of dedicating myself to ‘create art’ as utterly selfish, without realizing how much I had desired ‘that’ to be my reality before. I’ve also been recently sharing about these points with people, explaining how I’m not proud of the decisions I made earlier on in my life and how I would not recommend anyone to study arts. I do however not say ‘don’t study arts’ but simply place my own expectations, my own experience, my decision to do something else and how such studies were a nice platform but not real tools to do what I am doing now. So when I find ‘artists’ defined as such, there’s an attempt to me to see if they also see the futility that I see in art as well – well this happened with one specific person in one specific moment.

A Spell to Ward off the Darkness is the title of a documentary/film that is mostly existential in nature and more like an ‘art film’ than documentary – even though I agree with Ben Russell, one of the directors, on how an objective documentary doesn’t really exist as there’s always a ‘frame’ that is defined by the one filming/directing, so from that perspective yes it’s not really ‘objective.’ However I did notice that this movie was entirely aimed at creating an emotional experience about it, with majestic landscapes, very little dialogue and loud black metal music at the end. I had the opportunity to ask a question to Ben after the screening and when I realized that my theory of how and why Black Metal emerged ( lol ) was nowhere near their intentions within this movie, and he veered off into something else I saw myself judging the individual as ‘typical artist’ that responds with quite a lot of rhetorical rubbish before getting to answer the question. It didn’t end up there, I wrote him back an email essentially asking him whether he considered art was meant to be a hammer with which to shape the world, to prove that we can change it. And then I got quite a bold and rather supportive reply from him which made me realize that I was being an ego myself trying to impose onto other artists/film makers My idea of what art should be, and how if their creations were merely ‘emotional’ then they were useless to what I’ve defined ‘the purpose’ of art.

I realize that after this brief exchange with him where I had certainly ‘demanded’ some answers from him about his intent on his film, he essentially told me that maybe this wasn’t a text/film for me, and that left it very clear how I was trying to make such film fit my standards of what art should be and be used for, instead of it being a creative process in itself.  I also see and realize that I’ve become a ‘victim’ of my own judgments, my own definitions and so I’ve generated a rigidity about what art was supposed to be, what art didn’t ‘fulfill’ within me and thus justify the reasons why I got to see art as entirely useless and self-centered activity. These are all judgments of course that should be seen for what they are, my own creation in order to become my own ‘word – redefiner’ – (see previous post on Rumsfeld) – in order to make of my decision to not further any artistic endeavors as the ‘right thing to do’ and so justify it with now ‘bashing’ artistic views that are not the same as ‘my own’ somehow so as to make my decision sound right and be righteous about my decision. This is not only the desire to be right about this, but also imposing the same mind-frames with which we have created religions and beliefs in the past, and we’re definitely here to stop such knowledge and information rigidity.

 

Also, the point here is not to go into the usual ‘extremes’ I would tend to go into when quitting/stopping/halting something wherein the entire love-hate relationship is generated. And this is quite the perfect example of how we create ‘hate’ – and even if in my case I wasn’t emotionally ‘hating’ art –  when our initial expectations about something/someone are not met and so, we become the epitome of ‘not wanting to know anything about’ that which we had previously set a high standard upon. This implies also the pattern of ‘blaming’ it, blaming apparently ‘art’ for not fulfilling or satisfying my initial intentions, without realizing that it was me that wanted to first make of art my ‘way out’ of ‘the system’ or a way to evade it, and when realizing I really can’t do that, then I simply believed that I had to ‘let go’ of it overall and completely –  without realizing that this is no different to just running away from a relationship that ‘didn’t work out’ without first taking the time to understand Why it didn’t work out or how and that means that through understanding the problem, we can also create solutions.

My overall attitude to this all, however, was within the mentality of not wanting to create anything but still be interested in looking art, admiring paintings or other artists and kind of playing the game of I like it but I shouldn’t like it – I mean, it is quite an unnecessary game that I create in my mind just because I had previously given too much value onto ‘art’ and what it ‘meant to me’ and how my entire life was supposed to be ‘intertwined’ around art, and how the moment I started dissociating myself from it it meant like a literal relationship breakup, when it should Not be like that at all. I mean if I had criticized this types of relationships between individuals, how hadn’t I seen that I’ve been living the exact same pattern with my relationship to ‘art’ and within that every other person that I related myself to from the art-vein of my life-experience? It doesn’t make sense as that implies I resist ‘it’/them which implies I hold a dear relationship of separation. So this is a till here no further.

 

I have to then point out the practicality of the decision here which I might have written out before but here it comes again so as to iron out any wrinkles on my side. It is no doubt that we all can create things, be expressive in any artistic endeavor and enjoy the process of creating it and sharing it with the world etc. – however at the moment in our world and reality, I do see it as rather impractical to be fully dedicated to the creation of art/plastic arts specifically when there’s so much to get done in this world in relation to education, to understanding who/what we are as human beings in our minds, how we direct in our lives, how we’ve created this world system and through understanding it all, be able to now establish and conduct solutions at an individual and collective level – and this is what I’ve decided to do. However I see that even if for me this is ‘clear’ there’s still a shadow of a doubt in relation to how people ask me ‘what am I doing’ and within this believing that I should be speaking about the many paintings or etchings or whatever I’ve created as a result of my work as ‘an artist’ in the formal/traditional sense of the word.  So I come upfront and explain how I’m not doing that and what I dedicate myself to, which sounds ‘interesting’ to most but I see that as long as I still hold on a judgment about this as me ‘having wasted my time in art school’ or ‘not developing myself as an artist’ then no matter who/what questions are asked, I’ll still experience that shadow of a doubt simply because I’ve judged it as a failed decision in my life.

 

The dictatorship of definitions

And this I might have shared before but it’s relevant to bring it up again as it’s been coming up many more times, as well as with what ‘I do’ with my life since I mostly work on the internet and there is currently no institutionalized career that defines what I do within this process at Desteni to be a point of support for myself and others in this world to walk this process which I do entirely see as vital and the most important thing to dedicate ourselves to in this world, which is a necessary step if we ever want everyone to genuinely enjoy an artistic lifestyle of creating/expressing in a world where hunger, wars, poverty, corruption, greed and a lousy economic system can be no more. All changes begin within self and so I have entirely decided to step aside from my artistic endeavors to dedicate myself to this process of Education, of being an example of this change myself, of supporting other people walking this process, of investigating economic and political solutions, of sharing/talking about these necessary changes at an individual and collective level, as that is how we can then all as human beings take self-responsibility for the world in shambles we have created – so that is what our artistry has been defined by, and I’m in no way proud of the world we’ve wrought here.

 

 

I have also said before how this process in itself is a self-creation process, hence I am my own work of art. However the ‘art’ definition here is obviously not the common one and that’s probably my inner dissonance which I am here to straighten up and redefine so that I stop separating myself from what I’ve defined as ‘artistic creation’ in the most traditional sense and what I ‘should’ be creating,  and rather integrate the principle of self-creation in whatever thought, word, deed as myself including the activities I’ve defined as merely ‘artistic’ such as ‘creative writing,’ shooting videos, painting pictures, taking pictures and lol even as I write this it is like oh shit that’s all just pointless drama-creations of me, who I was before. However that’s how I’ve limited them to be instead of seeing how visual art is quite a powerful way to provide/promote a message and a more digestible or ’friendly’ way to explain living principles through images, films to make them more palpable – whereas with just theory not everyone might be able to find it or understand it.

 

So, this is to see how it is about expanding myself to see the potential that exists in everything that is already here in this world. I would be my own worst enemy if I would define art or being an artist as something pointless or mere egotistic – it is nothing more and nothing less than a definition and judgment, instead of considering that as anything and every other job/profession in this world can be seen for what it is, for its potential, its redefinition to be self-supportive and to use it as a tool to provide ways to look at the world in a different manner and how to ‘eat it’ meaning how to live it, to understand it, to embrace it. That’s what I’ve also noticed is lacking within Art.

 

 

Art as a tool for change?

It’s relatively ‘easy’ to identify the patterns or the problems, and represent them – but driving the problem through to the solutions is mostly always missing. So that’s the kind of principles of self-creation that I’d like to contribute with in relation to art/art-theory if you want to call it that which is not limited to artists or people that study art, but to any human being that wants to become an instrument themselves, a tool with which to conduct and become the change that I realize is necessary in this world. I’ve identified the problems, so I’m working on the solutions and that is no physical ‘work of art’ but if I take on Sol Lewitt’s paragraphs of art in relation to making of the process itself, the structure, the plan of a work of art the ‘piece’ in itself or in other words “If the artist carries through his idea and makes it into visible form, then all the steps in the process are of importance. The idea itself, even if not made visual, is as much a work of art as any finished product. All intervening steps –scribbles, sketches, drawings, failed works, models, studies, thoughts, conversations– are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.”

 

…then my entire life is also then that: self-creation and supporting other people’s self-creative processes. Lol, am I theoretically justifying myself as an ‘artist’ here? Can be, but why not? I’ve read such blatant bullshit in art-theory that expanding art-theory to self-creation within principles of life in Equality, of Self-Responsibility, of Dignity, Integrity, producing solutions is quite the most meaningful thing we can do as human beings after centuries of emotional, material or conceptual glorification in art. Time for Life to be supported in everything that we do beginning at a thought level and that begins with ourselves, with becoming the master-pieces that I’ve seen and realized I sought to ‘create’ outside of myself or to use ‘art’ as some kind of alter-ego platform to glorify myself through the eyes of others. Self-honesty is required within art, understanding why one wants to create art and if the purpose, aim or objective and starting point of creation is actually aligned with a ‘higher purpose’ or goal which is then how I am seeing that art can be used to educate people, to wake people up, to provide new understandings and ways to understand, behave and co-exist  in the world – but that still has to be lived by and applied by each one of us first as first ‘test-runs’ in this process.

 

I realize there’s really ‘nothing’ that can ‘change you’ as that would then be the idea of this ‘magic red pill’ that you simply take it and understand everything about the Matrix and reality, the mind, who we are as our mind, the world-systems we’ve governed ourselves by, etc. So, in that sense what we can all do is become the example of what it is to walk such process, to provide and produce educational materials/writings/videos or whichever ‘tool’ we can use to support others in the inevitable process that is here as our process of realizing who we really are as life. Easily said, a whole other story to understand it as to what it in fact implies.

 

I’ll continue with walking Self-Forgiveness on specific points mentioned here, as well as the Self Corrective Statements to redirect my relationship formed with art/artistic creation and artists themselves so as to no longer limit myself and others through my own definitions of art or ‘what art should be’ and instead focus on my own process of self-creation and the endeavor I’ve taken on to be that point of support for others as well, a birthing-as-life supporter which is what I in fact really wanted to do since I can remember. I can use all tools available in this world for this purpose without limiting myself within it and that’s also the process of expansion here that is necessary for me to clarify and structure as well.

 

” Economics is not only a money making principle. It can be a way of production to fulfill the demands of people all over the world. Capital is human kind’s ability in work, not just money. Thus economics includes the creativity of people. Creativity equals Capital” – Joseph Beuys

 

 

Fuck it, Pollock has done it all  – 2005

 

Watch:

• Art and Politics – Living Income Guaranteed

• 2011 Art in Equality: Be your own Work of Art

 

To learn more about the mind and how we can unleash our creative powers by integrating new living principles, check out:

• Desteni
• Desteni Articles
• Destonians
• Desteni Lite Process
• Desteni I Process
• Desteni Forum
• Desteni Wiki
• Desteni Español
• Creation’s Journey to Life
• Heaven’s Journey To Life
• 7 Year Journey To Life Process