A friend of mine recently taught a virtual paint and sip. You know what that is, right? It’s where you drink some wine (or whatever you care to imbibe) and lay some generic image down on a canvas, under the careful guided instruction of a “teacher”. Anyway, when I asked him how it went, he told me that it was great with one fairly minute glitch. The hiccup, you ask? The organizer forgot to include white paint in everyone’s supply kit that they mailed out to all participants. My friend shared with me that he didn’t want to be the cause of any embarrassment and so he just “rolled with it,” making due with what supplies were available and never acknowledging a mistake or missing item.
When he showed me the piece he created while practicing for the event and the final piece created during the event, I was amazed. The pieces evoked the same sentiment. However, the piece created during the workshop (sans white paint) was just a little more intense in appearance. The colors were richer and darker and so, the scene looked less airy and breezy and more…well, something else. Something sort of indescribable but different. Like a beach day just before the weather starts to turn or the sun goes down.
It got me thinking in a few different directions. On one hand, I was thinking that everything, and I mean everything, is colored by perspective (pun intended). If I had never seen the training or practice piece, I likely wouldn’t have given any thought to the “appearance” of the piece created during the actual class. The comparison is what really sealed the deal for me. My perspective was altered or shifted because of what had already been planted in my brain. The second notion that filled my brain was that the most seemingly inconsequential changes can often have the biggest impact.
These two concepts aren’t necessarily life changing revelations, right? Phew. Huh?
I’m not trying to take pretty basic shit and pass it off as monumental. Or am I? I believe that it is actually the little things that get lost in translation, or along the way. So many of us (yours truly included) are trying to write a grand story, leave a legacy, move a mountain. And so, we forget or more appropriately, we neglect, all of the more minor life lessons that have the most staggering impact.
You might be thinking something along the lines of ‘well, if I have the big shit down, does that other stuff really hold as much weight? Does it really matter anymore?’ Yeah, it does, for a million reasons. Mostly because (i) neglecting all those critical, albeit little, foundational blocks can topple the whole damn structure (ie. your big dreams, plans, etc.) and (ii) when you are taking a hot minute off from the major life “stuff” and just living, you’re going to need every teeny little thing. All the things. You can’t build anything solid with just a hammer and nothing else. Well, unless you’re MacGyver. That guy could probably build a whole compound with a paper clip and some twine.
Okay, so obviously your girl likes some order. We know that by now, right? So I’m going to tackle things with some specific intentionality. To start, I want to talk about what it means to know things by virtue of perspective. Well, there’s the evident bit that rises to the surface straight away, which is to say that we all see and view and interpret things through our very own and personal lens. That very fact is why the arts (oh and nearly everything else in life) is so subjective.
We take our very personal context, viewpoint, experience, and personality, and layer all those things over and in every single thing we encounter. “Oh you thought he was charming? I found him pretty organic.” “You think this blouse is blue? It looked gray to me this morning.” “You think the soup is seasoned perfectly? I actually found it kind of salty.”
You get it right? The world around us is shaped by us. What does that mean? Well it means that on some level, we have the power to participate actively in that process. You might be thinking: Of course. I can. I do. But, do you? I think most of us either forget that we have this right or ability OR we decide to relinquish our power for some other reason. What reason, you ask? Oh, you know. Fear. Grief. Anger. Desperation. We give things up to the universe because it actually makes us feel safer.
Strange concept, no? Leaving our view, our interaction with the world, our feelings, to someone or something else, actually feels more comfortable than owning our own shit. Why? Well, because then we aren’t responsible. When things go awry, when shit gets turned upside down, when others are hurt, when we are hurt, we don’t have to own it. We’ve displaced it all.
It wasn’t me. That whole ugly situation was just life pummeling me. As for the others? Collateral damage.
I’ve talked through this idea before but it’s pretty critical, so why not loop back, right? I have been there. Heartbreak, job frustration, injury, friend loss, and the list goes on. If I don’t own it, then I have the unilateral right to be mad at something that exists far outside of me. I get to claim that some things will never change, that I will never change or get better or do better. Also, I get to feel sorry for myself until literally the end of time. Plus, I get to do the same harmful and insane shit over and over again because, using this line of thinking, it is nothing that can be helped or saved or fixed. I was shit on by the universe and that is that.
I mean sure, we are often delivered shit that we cannot control but it’s how we roll with it that shapes us, right? I think it’s a good time to acknowledge that we live in a world, a society, that is filled with sources of unhealthy comparison. Our entire social media spectrum is premised on the notion that we need other people to validate who we are, how we live, and what we do. Furthermore, we can’t really understand ourselves without approval (or lack there of) and a view into others’ internal or external homes.
My apartment is charming, cozy, lovely, eclectic, and warm. It is. However, I catch a peek at some influencer’s space that is decorated to the nines and suddenly, I see all the flaws in my very loved space. I can now clearly see where dust collects, where paint is chipped, and which cupboards stick. I see towels that are covered in lint and overcrowded cabinets, and curtains that close imperfectly. Always.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that you never look outside yourself, never take a critical look, never self-reflect, and never compare. That’s silly. Plus, there’s goodness that often emerges from some level of healthy exploration or comparison. We might work just a little harder, strive a little more, push ourselves.
We can also (I know, the horror) admire what someone has and appreciate it without it reverberating around our skulls. Like, you can have a nice apartment, and so can I. They cane be different and both nice.
But, can you? Can you glance outside of yourself and resist the urge to be self-critical? Is it within you to stay even keeled and peaceful? I have a couple of friends and acquaintances who have told me on more than one occasion that they feel shitty whenever they look at social media. You know what question comes next, don’t you? Why look then? You don’t have to take a forever break (though you can and survive it- I know many well adjusted humans who do not have any accounts). You just have to take a time out that’s sufficient enough time to allow you to regroup.
Also, you are allowed to be a little jealous. It’s okay to think ‘wow, I’d love to find a special someone’ or ‘I wish I owned one of the new Chloe bags’ or ‘I’d die for those marble countertops. You should just try to avoid translating those feelings into feelings of unworthiness and self-loathing. The question really becomes: can you actively participate without feeling like garbage as a result?
We all know that it’s more than social media. Right? So much more. If we actively live in the world, evidence of who we aren’t, what we don’t have, and what we haven’t accomplished is everywhere. But what if we just accepted that our paintbox is just missing a non essential color? What if we decide that we never needed the color to begin with? What if we recognized that it is not the result of some purposeful mission? It might change things, the missing paint, but do those changes really have to wreck the whole ship? Let’s start there and then move forward.
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 