The Present Moment

Not easy to find the time these days, as I’m also taking time off work to care for an elderly Uncle, who is now living with us. A gentleman to the core, however part of his condition is that he can’t remember, and always inquisitive by nature, he asks lots and lots of questions, except this time it’s the same five questions over and over again, sometimes, the five are asked in the space of ten minutes – twice!.

So its ironic I’m reading about living in the present moment, because by the books urgings it shouldn’t really concern me that I’m answering the same question over and over again, since we can only really dwell in the present moment and all I can do is answer the question posed in this moment.

To cut a long story short, Tolle’s book has helped me. I try not to dwell on yesterday or ponder the potential happenings of tomorrow. I just am in this moment, each moment being an act of conscious creation. All of this can sound like new age hairy fairy, and it could easily be described as thus by its detractors, but what Tolle says is true It's what all the worlds major religions say, that all power resides in the now, and being present in the now is one of the great challenges of being human and growing into a more conscious human person.

The book was recommended by another a person I have had a long standing admiration for, Steve Pavlina, his site has being a power house of common, and not so common sense thinking. Quite simply I find his stuff inspiring, and now he has written a new book, collating a lot of his thinking over the years on the principles of self development. Check out his site and be inspired www.Stevepavlina.com. I’m presently reviewing his book of the same name, SELF DEVELOPMENT FOR SMART PEOPLE, so hopefully that should be posted shortly, at least before his work goes to second print.

So what has all of this to do with painting. Well it depends on where your coming from. I personally hate it when people on hearing I paint, or have listen to me going on and on about some obscurity about art, lean back and say in all innocence that its nice to have such a hobby. It sends a cold chill through my bones, I can almost feel myself drifting into oblivion, a common feeling amongst creative folks when they feel they are losing their power to create work of any worth, or work at all for that matter.

So that’s my starting point for explaining why books such as Tolles and Pavlina’s are so important to me. The reason basically is because those books, help me understand myself, the help me move forward in the world, forever redefining myself, and of course this journey is bourne out in my art, this journey is my art, and its manifested by the substances of canvas and oil paint. Canvas and oil paint are nothing by themselves, they are infused with my energy when I engage with them, and my energy is born and renewed and chanelled in the way I live my life, and the way I live my life is informed by what I read, amongst other things, most important being my close relationships with those around me.

So don’t tell me that it’s a nice ‘hobby’. Perhaps for some it is..they find they have time on their hands so they take up a hobby, for some its painting. Finding they like trees, they go to the countryside or find a nice photo in a magazine and paint, a sense of accomplishment follows and they enjoy their dinner that evening a bit better.

Perhaps at the end of the day, that’s what I do. Maybe I do the samething, who knows? Only the person themselves can really know, deep inside, how important or unimportant painting is for them, and all I can do is speak for myself and say for the reasons described above, painting is a life and death matter.

If you paint you live, you express, you grow. If you don’t paint, you die. It might take a long time, but you eventually die in ways beyond the physical, you have stopped engaging with the world in the way in which you were meant to. So to those who insist on it being a hobby, I have only one thing to say…| “if this is a hobby, show me life”

So what am I really writing about here before I conclude, because we are told all writing sums up its main points before it closes. I’m saying read a lot. Write a lot. Paint a lot. These disiciplines are all interlinked, one feeds the other. Read good books like Tolle’s and Pavlina’s. Experiment with your painting, let it take you where you would rather not go i.e. outside your comfort zone. At the end of the day, it’s meant to. It’s a hard taskmaster, when you stop growing, you die. So just keep growing and the rewards will look after themselves.