I Take The Vow

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I take the vow of non-violence in my thoughts, my speech and my actions.

Thoughts

“The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings”

-Buddha

What thoughts have you had today?

Blank Slate

What are passing ideas, images and dreams, and what are the ideas I grab and make real? Is there a difference? Or is it all me? During the course of the day, many ideas pop into my head. Ideas of things that would be cool to do or have, images that would be interesting or challenging to paint, career directions I never considered before. My challenge recently is which do I choose to pursue, or are these merely distractions.

I am in an arguably enviable spot. I have a clean slate. I am not tied at the moment to any career or life direction. I can go and do anything, truly. On one hand, I am completely grateful for this opportunity. It doesn't happen everyday. On the other hand, it feels daunting and overwhelming. I'm not used to it. Many aspects in my life I allowed to happen to me, such as much career until recently. There wasn't much decision or direction or guiding. Much of that was due to me not understanding that 1) I have a say in how my life unfolds, and 2) I didn't know what I wanted.

So now, it is decision time. Which idea and image to follow is the task as hand. Which ones do I want and I believe I can make happen. Ironically, while I have been in this state for the past few weeks, I have been unable to paint. No desire at all. No inspiration. All these images in my head and I do not feel the urge to attempt to capture them at all.

I am curious to see what will happen in the next year, few months, few weeks. Many changes I suspect are looming just waiting for me to step in one direction in the other and start down a new and exciting path.

4 Principles

Always keep these four principles as a guiding foundation (from Delvyn Steele):

1. Vision

Have a vision of the change you want to see

2. Belief

Believe that what you do makes a difference

3. Faith

Have faith that even though you may not see the changes today, they will come

4. Action

Take your vision, belief and faith and channel that into daily action

Pat, I Would Like to Buy a Vowel

This past week I was examining the latest suggestion from Bruce Mau's "Incomplete Manifesto for Growth" which reads "Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions."

I didn't realize this but I've been doing this all along. I'm not a formally trained artist so there are techniques that I use that I may not know the "official" term but I still try to convey what I am doing or the meaning behind it. In those cases, I have created new words or phrases to help me get my point across. This goes hand in hand with creating your own tools.

In addition, creating my own words and phrases is a very creative process and it all builds on each other. First a word, then a technique to match it, then that leads to another technique and a new word is required, and so on. New vocabulary is just one way we can be creative.

But I would like to expand this idea even further playing off the concept that expression generates new conditions, and similarly, new conditions generates new expressions. I don't want to limit myself to only creating new words. I want to encompass it all to new forms of expression. Perhaps it will start with a word that grows into something bigger but I want to remove the limit. When working, create your own form of expressions. That will definitely foster new conditions and change.

This week I will look at the next suggestion from Bruce Mau "Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent." This is the 29th recommendation. Only 13 left to go.

Time Warp

Some days I find the blank screen before I begin blogging a bit intimidating, like today. I'm not sure what to write about. So this is going to be very free form and flowing.

Due to a few circumstances I changed my routine this morning. I ended up painting nearly 2 hours earlier than normal. It felt odd. However, just like any other day, I got into my groove quickly once I committed to painting. I took frequent breaks and I made sure that I painted for at least the same amount of time as if I were on my usual schedule. I ended up painting a little longer.

I noticed that time warps for me when I paint. During one session between breaks I was painting and it seems that hours had passed. When I checked the time, only 15 minutes had passed. Then in another session, I thought I had painted quickly and it was much later in the day than I realized. I was experiencing extremes in how I sensed time. Time was speeding up, and slowing down. In both cases, I was focused on the painting and what I was doing at the moment. Not many external thoughts were entering my head, except for the music that was playing in the background. For me, painting, or creating of any sort, is a quasi-meditative state. I guess I "zoned out" this morning and my sense of time is the victim.

I wonder how much of my time warping is attitude, or color selection, or focused attention, or combination of these or other things going on. I'm sure these had occurred before but I never noticed it. How many other tasks that I believe will take me a long, long time (and therefore I procrastinate) and end up taking little time to complete? And on the opposite end of the spectrum, how many tasks I believe will be quick and take forever (and I get frustrated)? Of course, what about the tasks that take the amount of time to complete as I had envisioned. Do I even notice those or do I just go on with my day?

I will try to pay more attention to time while I work. I can imagine the fun I could have if I can learn specifically how to warp time. This sounds kinda like Star Trek.

Be Who You Are

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind
don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

-Santiz