DRAWINGS

An environment concept sketch from this week’s drawing practice. Ideas for environments often come to me spontaneously, and when one happens to appear I try to put down a rough sketch as soon as possible before it disappears completely from my mind. When I later have time, sometimes I complete a full painting. 

I am not entirely sure what this place was meant to be. A maze of concrete walls forms a series of small gardens that lie in a dilapidated state. A large greenhouse looms in the landscape in the distance. Its pristine condition and the plants within suggest that it is still in use, or perhaps in the process of becoming overgrown. The process of completing a painting like this from sketch to finished render takes me about 4 hours.

Of course I have also found moments to do some simple pencil drawings in my sketchbook.

REFLECTIONS

No amount of anxiety really makes any tangible impact on the outcome of a situation. Most people have heard the phrase «We suffer more in imagination than in reality». I think it is attributed to Seneca from back in the day. Even though it has almost become a cliché at this point, it is undeniable that worry is an infinitely skinned onion that has very little basis in reality. It is more of a way of seeing than an actual objective fact about a situation. Even after considering a problem solved and one reason to worry dissolves, if you are prone to worry you will quickly discover another somewhere else. The worry simply expands to fill the space that is provided for it.

On the opposite side of things, if you are so inclined, you will be able to find a reason not to worry. There is a Japanese idea «taru wo shiru» (足るを知る): being content, even when things are simple or lacking. The feeling that something is not good enough is a thought that really only tends to expand. I think that it helps greatly to try to become aware of this pattern, and to see the foolish nature of its endless cycle.

The reality is that there are countless external factors that influence any given situation and where we might find ourselves inside of it. While these macro-trends never fully remove our personal agency and ability to choose in the moment, fortune and randomness play a much greater role in determining our paths than we perhaps feel comfortable to admit. 

I tend to deal with anxiety in two ways. The first is to try to take a more playful approach to life. I am absolutely guilty of taking things far too seriously, and how silly it is to become caught in this way of being when the world that we all share is impermanent and constantly dissolving no matter what we do. The second is to try to define a next clear step, and then simply to take it. No one has ever ruminated their way out of a problem. It is a bad habit to imagine an entire journey at once and to look for a way to complete it in one gigantic step. It is much more useful to accept that anything great will necessarily be constructed one small action at a time, and begin to focus one’s attention on carrying out these small actions every day while enjoying the process of so doing. Small steps compound with time, and they will also reveal unique opportunities for joy along the way. Life is non-linear, and you never really know what is optimal. Who knows how much misery and suffering we actually might be spared when we do not immediately get something that we think we desire. 

This thought reminds me of one of my favourite books: «Kusamakura» (草枕 - literally «grass pillow») by Natsume Sōseki (1906). The following passage has always stuck with me:

"When I had lived in this world for twenty years, I understood that it was a world worth living in. At twenty-five I realized that light and dark are sides of the same coin; that wherever the sun shines, shadows too must fall. Now, at thirty, here is what I think: where joy grows deep, sorrow must deepen; the greater one’s pleasures, the greater the pain. If you try to sever the two, life falls apart. Try to control them, and you will meet with failure. Money is essential, but with the increase of what is essential to you, anxieties will invade you even in sleep. Love is a happy thing, but as this happy love swells and grows heavy, you will yearn instead for the happy days before love came into your life. Splendid though he is, a cabinet minister must bear a million people on his shoulders; the weight of the whole nation rests heavy upon his back. If something is delicious, it goes hard not to eat it, yet if you eat a little you only desire more, and if you gorge yourself on it, it leaves you unpleasantly bloated…"

LEARNING JAPANESE

Recently I have begun to learn some Japanese again. This was only a matter of time, given how Japanese culture has always been one of my biggest artistic influences. It is a lot of work (laughs). I have never cared about the existence of modern translation programmes, because I think that most of the benefit of learning other languages is what the practice does to yourself within you. A language is a system of meaning that developed in a certain context amongst predecessors that differ from your own. Every new language represents thus a new way of seeing.

Japanese is written with three alphabets: «hiragana» which is a system of letters similar to the way the letters in the English alphabet works, «katakana», a second system (!) of unique letters primarily used for words of foreign origin, and «kanji», the complex symbols that are characteristic of Asian languages. Apparently the average Japanese makes use of about 2000 unique kanji characters in everyday language. Even though this is not my first rodeo, to learn them will be a monumental task that will probably take many years. I am still not sure how formal names work.

MUSIC

At last I want to finish with a song recommendation! I like to listen to a lot of different music while working, and when I am feeling particularly energized a song from TOOL never fails to inspire. «Lateralus» is one of the greatest albums of all time. TOOL came to the festival «Tons of Rock» in Oslo a few years ago, and I missed the concert! I am not sure if I will ever live that down.

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