Other Ramblings Archives – Richard Collison

by Richard on May 17, 2019 Leave a Comment

How to deal with the darkest moments

‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’
Winston Churchill

There are those moments when I’m in a bad way. In those times I notice just how much the negative side of my personality comes out.

Anger
Hatred
Resentment
Despair
Bitterness
Loneliness

Some of these I can’t seem to stop boiling upwards into my thoughts and feelings.

It manifests in the imagery that pops into my mind.

When I get angry I imagine picking a fight, I want to lash out.When I’m depressed I imagine failure and defeat. Here I don’t lash out as much as I mentally curl up, as a mode of self-protection.

I search for the worst humanity has to offer in the news on Youtube. I read the comments to remind me just how awful people can be. I think it’s ‘like seeking like’.

That way I can sit back and feel justified in my hatred or despair etc. (Even though this attitude is a distortion of the reality ).

In these dark moments, it feels so right to hate, despair or be angry. So right that it’s hard to resist, to see beyond it. My world shrinks to become just that negative feeling.

Also, such negative states often leave me tense and tired. Because emotion causes me to go into a fight or protection mode. Which for me is tense muscles, especially in the back and neck.

I have been known to wallow in self-pity during such these moments too and I hate it. ‘Poor me, how wretched my existence!!’. ‘The world is out to get me’. It’s like I chew over my own vomit.

I used to do this much more than now, but I don’t want to anymore. It affects my health, it feeds my negative side, it dis-empowers me and makes me turn away from life. Breaking out of this mindset is difficult, I’m often not aware of doing it.

I can’t stop feeling such feelings, but I want to break the habit of just following them, feeding them.

I want newer, better habits. To remind myself that people can be good, the world is beautiful despite all the ugliness, suffering and mendacity.

The point here is that in those dark places we have behavioural habits. Some make the hurt fester like lashing or blaming others.

Other habits help heal the open wounds in our soul.

What I try to do is remind myself of the better things in life. Going outdoors, nature, works of art.Anything that makes me laugh.Inspiring reminders that remind, I do matter. I can make a difference.

I try to avoid self-pity and instead do something. Or I try to remember that others suffering far more than myself, or I remind me myself that one day I will die.

Further still I focus on work. To create, sometimes solely for my own enjoyment, or put out into the world.

Another good habit is to reach out to others, which for me is something I find hard to do.

These healing habits are forgiving, connecting, calming, the opposite of how I feel. They help me let go of pain I feel I need to hold onto.

It’s not about denying such feelings. But rather to stop dwelling on them in a vicious circle that causes real harm to yourself and the people around you. (In Buddhism this cycle of hurt is the meaning of Samsara).

Instead, walk a different circle. Finding hope in hopelessness, compassion in hatred, peace in anger and so transform your mind.

It’s applying an antidote to your suffering, just as you might a bandage to a wound. It’s not a substitute for prevention. But sometimes you just need something to soothe the pain and start the healing process.

Another important point is to choose the right antidotes. Some like drink and drugs may make you feel better in the short term. But you will pay the price of such toxins in the long run.

Instead create some art, or enjoy some. Watch an enjoyable TV or film. Read a book. Go for a walk, or a run. Seek inspiration in literature, history and art. Stories that are uplifting and motivating.

Choose habits that are soothing and transforming.Have these treatments close to hand. The key point is that we all suffer, but we do have a choice about what to do when we are.

Amongst all this is self compassion. Something I find difficult and like society often thought self indulgent.Somehow we got it into our heads that life should be easy. When we encounter difficulty we blame ourselves using a scathing critical voice to motivate us to do better. Such self harm, (and it is self harm), kept me isolated alone and afraid.

But a book, Self Compassion by Kristin Neff helped me to realise just how important such kind self-regard is. The book shows that self-criticism not only doesn’t work, but it can backfire. Preventing growth, connections and fostering anxiety which can sap motivation.

By soothing our agitation and letting ourselves off the hook when we make a mistake we can gather the courage to try again. Knowing that we can accept ourselves as imperfect beings helps us find the courage to keep trying and learn.

Such an attitude fosters humility, kindness, the recognition of shared humanity, and a desire to help others.

We have have such grand expectations for ourselves and when we don’t live up to them we can doubt our worthiness.

Self-compassion is one of the biggest lessons I had to learn and one of the most useful.

It’s not self indulgence or self pity, but the acknowledging a fact. That we are hurting.

Like a wound in your flesh, recognise it, accept it, attend to it. I gradually moved away from feeding my pain to accepting it. Spending time to care for myself.

Self compassion is the recognition of our suffering, our pain, and the application of a soothing balm to help us cope with it.

During those dark times when it all gets too much, when we wonder how we can go on.We can get so caught up in the problems and suffering that we forget ourselves and the vital tranquillity, the potential that still exists within.

We have to remember that there are steps we can take to ameliorate our suffering.By being kinder to ourselves, and acknowledging our pain without running from it.

We accept the truth of our precarious and vulnerable existence, and the suffering it inevitably causes.

The ideas I have come across in my journey have helped me deal with the suffering I’ve had to face. For more on those ideas subscribe to my newsletter

by Richard on April 3, 2019 Leave a Comment

What is art, and does it matter?

In the blog post How Plein Air painting differs from Perceptual Painting? Larry Groff muses over the difference between the popular painters of today like Plein Air artists who find their way into magazines and perceptual painters who have a more modern take on the world and find their way into galleries.

Personally, I’ve never heard of perceptual painting but he goes on to explain the differences between them.

‘Rarely do you see Plein-air painting that speaks issues involving modernist or post-modern painting and Plein-air painters are more likely to look to French or early California Impressionists, Hudson River Painters and other 19th Plein air landscape painters … Cutting-edged graduates of many Art Schools often dismiss Plein-Air painting as sellout kitchen, provincial, irrelevant and/or just bad art that caters to the low-brow masses. Some, of a postmodern conceptualist persuasion, would turn their back to any painting that wasn’t about the bigger issues of sex, war, oppression, depravity or anything with high volume shock value. Little paintings of sea cliffs or mountain views are barely more than motel painting in their eyes.’

This outlines the question, ‘what is art for?’

Is art there to satisfy the escapism of the masses (‘art for art sake’) or is it there to deal with the real problems of the time and try to make a better world?

The comparison is that Plein-Air painters and painting today can seem less serious than conceptual painters and their art. Because they don’t seek to offer a message or deeper meaning in the art they create.

Some might say that art for the masses is crass and appeals to the mass market.Because if you’re not edgy, don’t have a deeper message or commentary on society then your dull, unimportant. You’re not a real artist and therefore they’re not worth paying attention to.

It reminded me of history. The Impressionists like Monet, Renoir wanted to get away from having a painting tell a story. So call ‘history painting’ is what the Salon, the art establishment wanted. Stories of heroes, gods and battle.

Monet was interested in light not the political or social subtext of his work.It was radical at the time because it rejects the idea that painting must have a deeper meaning.

The revival of Impressionism in the 1950’s and it’s continued popularity today is perhaps explained by the increased uncertainty in our postmodern world.

Bombarded with endless bad news from the media some of us just want to have a moment enjoying a piece of art without analysing it to death. To view it as purely aesthetic object devoid of deeper meaning.

But it’s the attitude that bothers me the most. If an artist has a motive to make pretty pictures for the popular masses, devoid of a hidden message. Then the gatekeepers of art are suggesting how naive and childlike they are.

A joke, an amateur at art.Something to be looked down on with a mocking amusement.

Who gave them the right and authority to decide whats art and not? Considering the kind of art lauded today I wonder how these people sleep at night.

I find that attitude condescending. It’s the art establishment trying to claim a superiority they can’t justify. When it comes to decorating our homes how many of us would buy a painting that’s edgy, troubling or topical. Or one that beautifies our homes?

Perhaps that’s the difference, these two art movements have different audiences.

I’m often tired of everything being politicised and turned into a commentary or critique. Sometimes I just want to look at something pretty.

It’s the whole Romanticism vs Realism debate. Escaping the ugliness of reality is I feel sometimes necessary. Sometimes we need art just to look good, to not cause us to question and doubt.

But neither should we dismiss the more serious art. That asks us to take life seriously sometimes, to question and doubt, and show the uglier side of life.
Our world needs both types of art and I’m all for a balance. I think it’s a sign of a healthy attitude.

However maybe the question is absurd.Artists by their profession are about self-expression, following their own inspiration and curiosity, they are not typically given to follow convention or orders.

With that attitude what does it matter what anyone else thinks about the art? As long as you’re seeking your own truth as an artist, or as a buyer.

So asking, ‘which art is the real art?’ That’s where it steps over from the interesting discussion of differences and acceptance, into competition and intolerance. Just another cynical attempt to create conflict in a world already full of it.

[I should point out this would not be the fault of the articles author but mine, taking the inquiry too far.]

To know who’s ‘in the right’ falls foul of turning art a political contest, like modernity itself.

Art is personal experience.

Is real art the kitsch work we see on our homes and businessmen, or the more serious form we in modern galleries?

Sometimes we do need an escape, a way of experiencing without all the politics, critique or ranting that some seem to think is necessary.

That’s turning art in work, and who wants to work all the time.

This debate is not going away. But maybe the debate itself is a waste of time. Who’s right and who’s wrong is missing the point.Maybe we shouldn’t take it all so seriously and realise art can have many functions.To escape problems or to highlight them.

Image Credit: shotsstudio / 123RF Stock Photo

by Richard on August 5, 2018 Leave a Comment

Safety, Nesting & the Project of Humanity

As individuals we’re vulnerable to the world.

We can be killed in numerous ways. Ever since our species has existed we’ve had to find ways to make the world around us less dangerous, less scary.

Think of it linguistically. Words like.

dis·o·ri·ent·ed [dis-awr-ee-en-tid, -ohr-] adjective
- confused as to time or place; out of touch: therapy for disoriented patients.
- Synonyms: distracted, mixed up, unstable, unhinged.

dis·o·ri·ent [dis-awr-ee-ent, -ohr-] verb (used with object)
- to cause to lose one’s way: The strange streets disoriented him.
- to confuse by removing or obscuring something that has guided a person, group, or culture, as customs, moral standards, etc.: Society has been disoriented by changing values.

be·wil·dered [bih-wil-derd] adjective [2]
- completely puzzled or confused; perplexed.
be·wil·der [bih-wil-der] verb (used with object)
- to confuse or puzzle completely; perplex: These shifting attitudes bewilder me.

What that means is you’re in a landscape that’s unfamiliar. You can’t count on much or any of your knowledge to help you.

You have been removed from the familiar places and habits and now you can’t locate yourself on the map, even if you had one.

The most obvious example of this is when you are travelling around in a foreign country. Without signposts, you would have no way to find out where you are. It’s why tourists are always looking around, to locate themselves on a map they carry.

When you go on holiday to an unfamiliar place. At first, it’s all foreign, overwhelming.

But once you’re there you start to write stories and create maps. You refer back to them, the restaurant where you ate, the sights you saw, here you were chased by a cow, there you were drenched by a sudden downpour.

You write meaning into existence by being there. Weaving stories into the reality before us so it becomes familiar.

Like the ancient mariners, we create knowledge to help us navigate and this also has the effect of making the world seem less threatening.

Making maps allows us to place ourselves in them, and gives us the feeling of certainty and safety that comes from knowing where you are.

This is just one example of our Nesting Instinct.

Our Nesting Instinct

Just like birds craft their nests or some mammals create burrows, we have evolved to find ways of creating comfort and safety for ourselves.

These bodies of ideas, values, beliefs can be seen as Landscapes of belonging, or our nest.

I believe that culture is personal psychology writ large. Our own fears and hopes are collect together to form the fads, fashions, and building projects we see.

Familiarity is what helps us feel safe. So we name things, connect things together creating a map.

Religion, science, art, language, society, beliefs, and so on are man-made endeavours. A landscape or body of ideas that allow us to make sense of the world and ourselves.

Our self-identity is a bundle of these ideas that we appropriate from outside.

We describe ourselves in terms of our job, the clothes we wear, the things we own, the friends we have. Our dreams values, fears and so much more.

In this respect religion, philosophy and science have the same purpose. To allow ourselves to create our own identity and a sense of belonging.

Humanity’s existence, the work we do and what we create is driven by a need to belong, to feel safe and secure. You could call it the Big Project of Humanity.

Here are some ways we gather our nests to find security.

Language

Bodies of language so we can communicate and herd together through shared values. Words, but also art, imagery and metaphor help us describe and clarify, so language helps define ourselves and our place in this world.

Physical

Buying a house, cars, we use as symbols of our maturity. We own posession to make us feel more like adults, but also as symbols of identity, like wearing brand labels on clothes.

I’m not just talking about our physical safety. Having a home with heating, air conditioning, shelter from the elements etc.

In communities, it takes place through laws, codes of behaviour, and punishments to prosecute those who break them.

Conceptual

There’s also an intellectual aspect. We read books, gain knowledge about the world in order to avoid making a mistake that could cost us.

In society it’s the same, we conduct science to learn and spread ideas around.

All in an attempt to convince ourselves that we have a good handle on the world, so we’re less surprised by the unexpected.

Spiritual

Science can’t tell us why we’re here or what we should do with it lives.

So here we invent religions, spiritual and philosophical traditions to help us live in a cosmos that we don’t fully understand. These beliefs give us meaning and provide guidance.

They comfort us by telling us that we’re important special, that we matter.

There are also moralistic landscapes, what is right and wrong, what to value what to aim for.

Vocational

Defined jobs with rules and routines giving us the safety of a regular income.

Artistic

Sometimes as an escape, but also to transmit ideas and meaning.

Even our bodies can be seen as keeping us safe through protection, immune system for example. Our minds give us emotions to keep us safe, disgust, anger, fear

In each case, the purpose of these possessions (ideas, values, beliefs, job etc) is that it helps insulate us from the vicissitudes of life. Helping us cope with the uncertainty we face.

If we look at humanity as a whole, what is it that unites us?

It’s hard to find an answer, but we all share in our fate that life is uncertain and ambiguous. Because of this, we all have the desperate desire to feel safe and secure.

We often think this desire to feel safe is hidden, but I see it all around me.

Looking at humanity as a whole you can see that so much of what we do is about our safety and security.

We wrap around ourselves these comfort blankets of beliefs, knowledge, and society through trust. Because facing the storm alone is difficult even impossible without them.

The Illusion of certainty

However, there’s a problem. It only works up to a point.

Certainty remains elusive because we can never be sure about what we know and believe.

We can feel safer, but the basis for that safety, upon closer examination becomes suspect.

We can’t really know reality beyond our ideas of it. We can’t predict the future so our fate is unknown.

A further point is change takes place. We have to change as well. To continue to grow and adapt in order to remain safe in our nest. Knowledge changes, old ideas are lost new ideas emerge. Adaptation is the method.

So all we can do is keep building these nests to gives them the appearance of safety, even as they fall apart beneath us.

To make the wilderness appear a little less wild.

[1] disorientate. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disoriented (accessed: August 09, 2014).

[2] bewilder. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bewilder (accessed: August 09, 2014).

by Richard on May 13, 2018 Leave a Comment

Loneliness by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick: Book Review

A brief review of the book Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick.

This book is an eye-opener when I first read it, now I’m rereading it again for the review and it’s still is. It’s full of useful information about the problem of loneliness and why it’s far more important than we think.

The biggest takeaway I had from this book is that the feeling of loneliness, just like other emotions affects our thinking.

In this case being lonely results in seeing the world and other people as more threatening.

Were more wary, mistrustful, cynical, and pessimistic. We’re less likely to reach out and connect with others, and when we do were often careful about how. Holding ourselves back for fear of attack, rejection.

Or even worse we see attacks upon us where there none, so we in anger and hurt lash out, at either our attackers or someone else.

All this means is that we keep the world and others at a distance. Which shows how loneliness fosters the kinds of behaviours that perpetuate the loneliness.

It becomes a vicious circle. Something that it’s not easy to escape from.

Worse still you may not notice that you are in such a circle. You make excuses for staying in night after night. They seem reasonable at the time but it’s a form of avoidance a way of addressing the uncertainty by not facing it.

Stagnation, isolation and loneliness follow each other. More health problems occur because the research shows loneliness can affect our biology which creates other diseases.

It’s a wake-up book to remind us how loneliness has become a problem and why. Reading this book is a reminder and a motive to put this issue front and centre of our personal lives and that of society as a whole.

This book gives insight into why I feel lonely, but also gives me a greater determination to seek connection to solve this most pervasive and debilitating problem. One that has defined me all my life.

My happiness is far too important to ignore and by definition, my loneliness must be too.

The book itself has many more insights but I feel it’s an essential read for everyone, not just those who are lonely or anxious.

It’s an essential read for anyone who feels the pain, the emptiness without the deeper meaningful connection we all need.

by Richard on March 11, 2018 Leave a Comment

A welcome interruption

For the past few weeks have been frustrated by the monotony of my life. The same routine each week. I was desperate for something to change.

Last week it happened when the snow fell. Not just a light sprinkling but several inches. Enough to disrupt transport and getting to work so much that I had two days off work.

Rather than do what I usually do. Work and keep ticking of stuff on my to-do list. I decided that this extra time was a gift. So I would concentrate on my painting almost exclusively.

In amongst watching DVDs and Youtube I manage to complete several small works, most of which I’m happy with.

Now that it’s all done I kinda miss that unstructured, spontaneous time I had.

I wanted and probably needed it.

For the most part how we live our lives is focused on the routine. Getting things done, ticking the checklist. That’s tiring after a while because there’s no let-up, the work never ceases.

Last week was a chance to relax and enjoy the time I had of. It just goes to show how important the occasional break is.

Like a weekend away, or a holiday we need those days when we put everything aside, with no other purpose than to enjoy ourselves.

No agenda, no lists, no timetables and no goals.

Just chilling, playing, or passively accepting.

We often think or we are told that such time is laziness. Yet I managed to-do more painting during those days than I would have if I was following a todo list.

It demonstrates we can get things done if we allow ourselves the time to do so. By putting other concerns aside the time left can be spent on something specific. Something that maybe we don’t get to do as much as well like.

It shows that we need to set aside time for tasks, or when opportunity strikes to take advantage of the unexpected. Erect proper boundaries around that time so that we’re not interrupted. To allow ourselves to go at our own pace. To let our minds wander and foster creativity.

It also shows that paradoxically we need interruptions. Routines need breaking, habits need to be disrupted. It’s partly a test, showing us how well we can cope, or not. But it also provides opportunities to try new routines or activities.

When something goes wrong it’s not always a negative. Better ways of working can be discovered because we had to find new paths, new methods..

Change and growth come from this marriage of destruction and creation.

I’m going to miss the snow. It was a welcome break. It gave me time to do what I wanted the most. To paint.

These upsets are necessary to get us out of those habitual ruts we get stuck in.

Next time something does go wrong, see it as an opportunity to try something new. A dream, a task or even a new routine. Put aside the typical day to day concerns where possible and use the time doing something you have postponed for far too long.

by Richard on February 18, 2018 Leave a Comment

Book Review: At The Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails

As part of my suffering to overcome my anxiety. I looked at many fields, including that of philosophy.

Years ago I read up on some ideas by the existentialists, and just recently I rediscovered these ideas in the book the At the Existentialist Cafe.

I got back in touch with many of the authors I read before. Sartre, Nietzsche, and other I hadn’t heard of, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Husserl.

I was refreshing to feel the ideas that prompted me to take up writing and art in the first place.

To recall what existentialism means and why it so important.

Like existentialism itself, this book was and is to me a ‘call to action’.

For far too long in my life I was disengaged, disinterested in it. I did take part in some measure. But there was always a part of me I held back. A past that I never let anyone see.

Existentialism and fiction reminded me that life is to be lived passionately.

This book is immersing in another way in that it’s not a philosophy book. It’s a mixture of history and biography, philosophy, and anecdotes from the author.

This to me made the book more interesting. A lived experience that is more real and compelling. Because the ideas were not just abstract concepts. You learned how Sartre and Beauvoir lived their ideas.

This is exactly how the existentialists wanted people to live their lives. Not as some philosophers see ideas as interesting mental toys to be discarded when life needs to be lived. Instead, ideas are supposed to be woven into life, to be lived and felt and acted out.

To entangle ourselves in our complex and changing existence that leaves is afraid and trembling.

The book then becomes an exemplar of existential philosophy. Life, ideas, society, friendship, art, politics, and people are all woven together because that’s how life is lived. The book tells a journey, which evoked those same emotions in me as the sci-fi/fantasy I used to read. The hero’s journey, of pain, struggle, passion, triumph and death.

I won’t go into all of the ideas of the existentialist as that’s for another set of posts.

However one titbit is existentialist thought is based on the ideas that we’re free, fundamentally so. Even though we are contained by circumstance we don’t lose our ability to make choices.

Those who give up on this are living in what Sartre calls ‘bad faith’.

It’s the notion that there are ‘no excuses’. We are responsible for how we lived, even if the choice we make is not to.

I was so refreshing to read this book and remind myself of the empowering ideas of the existential thinkers. It’s a great introduction into the lives of some of these great thinkers.

I highly recommended this book to anyone who wants to learn more about existential thought.

Image Credit. 刘东鳌(Liu Dong’ao) – Xinhua News Agency, Public Domain, Link