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5 Ways Faux Pas Dynamics Can Expand Your Perspective

Life

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January 4, 2016

5 Ways Faux Pas Dynamics Can Expand Your Perspective

“Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs.Therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity or undue depression in adversity.” ~ Isocrates

Much can be learned through mistakes. Often the fool’s misstep can teach us more than the masters disciplined step. Faux pas is one of those unappreciated words that grips the heart of what it means to ‘be mistaken.’

It’s a tragically misunderstood concept, not even the synonyms do it justice: mistake, blunder, gaffe, indiscretion, impropriety, or solecism, to name but a few. In French it literally means ‘false step.’ And false steps can be embarrassing. But there’s no reason why we cannot flip the tables on our embarrassment and use it to our advantage.

I briefly touched on the concept in 6 Unconventional Ways to Kick Open the Third Eye. Faux Pas Dynamics takes the original ‘misstep’ or ‘blunder’ and stretches it out into a kind of sacred humility so that we can use it as a tool for further exploration into our own fallibility. It makes it dynamic, vibrant, and self-motivating.

It gets us out of our own way, clearing the fog of shame, by making it okay that we fail, okay that we’re imperfect, and by helping us to embrace our fallibility so that we don’t make the mistake of stumbling further into hypocrisy.

1.) We’re more capable of eating humble-pie

“Humility is as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is of self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. It is in this sense that humility is absolute self-effacement.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Faux pas dynamics helps us embrace our fallibility in a humorous way. It serves up a warm helping of crow and says, “Here, eat this. You’ll see more clearly if you do.” It’s the Oracle in The Matrix telling Neo: “Here, take a cookie. I promise, by the time you’re done eating it, you’ll feel right as rain.”

Only this cookie is laced with humility, injected with modesty, and infused with an unassuming nature. When we’re done eating the cookie, it really sinks in: we are insurmountably imperfect and that is absolutely okay.

Faux pas dynamics is humbling because it helps us gain a healthier perspective through all the tiny deaths of our ego. Each mistake, each blunder, each misstep, is a blow to our ego. And each blow leaves a tiny crack behind, through which the light of humility can shine.

When we’re able to embrace such humility and learn from it, we’re more able to take on the slings and arrows of vicissitude. We’re more able to adapt and overcome to the precarious waters of the human condition.

2.) We’re better able to engage sacred laughter rather than profane reverence

“All our previous positions are now exposed as absurd. But people don’t draw the obvious conclusion: it must also mean then that our present situation is also absurd.” ~ Terrence McKenna

With faux pas dynamics we’re more apt to throw humble-pie in the face of any and all people who take themselves too seriously, including, especially, ourselves. Humble pie is the antidote for self-seriousness after all. Faux pas dynamics forces our too-serious face into that pie.

Take politics too seriously? Humble-pie right in the bipartisan kisser. Take your religion as the be-all-end-all? Humble-pie right in the myopic mug. All your eggs in just one basket? Practicing faux pas dynamics tips the basket right over into that humble pie, making it even more robust, and making more of a mess when it splatters all over your self-serious visage.

Above all, faux pas dynamics helps us realize that things change. What seemed like a profound truth yesterday is an uncouth error today. But that’s okay. Take the humble-pie to the face and learn from your mistakes.

You’ll become all the more robust as your laughter at the futility of it all becomes all the more sacred with each exasperated chuckle. Faux pas dynamics subsumes all Ways as mere ingredients for a better, more bitter-tasting, humble-pie.

3.) We’re more able to laugh off our halo lest it slip down to choke us

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” ~ Elbert Hubbard

Self-righteousness has no place while in the numinous throes of faux pas dynamics. Lest our newfound double-jointed spirituality give us too big a head, faux pas dynamics compels us to poke holes in the “holy” and plant seeds of counterintuitive humor into the pitiful loam of the reverent.

What we find is that we’re able to blaspheme with sacred whimsy and wily wit, realizing that our sense of humor always trumps our sense of seriousness.

It takes daily discipline to poke holes into our own ego. Faux pas dynamics helps us practice this daily act by first revealing the foundation: fallibility. Second, by building a flexible structure of trial-and-error that we’re free to move in and out of.

Third, by helping us to become better swimmers in the crushing water that eventually tears that structure down. And fourth, by realizing that the halo we vainly held above us, is better laughed off into the very thing that keeps us afloat: a good sense of humor.

4.) We’re free to mock all isms with Brouhaha-ism

“The soul demands your folly; not your wisdom.” ~ Carl Jung, Red Book

Brouhaha-ism is a sub art of faux pas dynamics. It’s the ism that trumps all isms. It is the only ism that doesn’t take itself, or anything, too seriously. A brouhaha is a boisterous and overexcited reaction to something.

Brouhaha-ism is laughter at all things, especially those things that people take too seriously. It allows for unruly interregnum, a space for sacred interruption so that we can take account of those things we’ve taken for granted.

Embracing brouhaha-ism is throwing ourselves into the maelstrom of human caprice, into the frenzied vortex where all things are measured utterly laughable, and then promptly laughed at.

It’s a sacred swimming through the frigid waters of our human tendency to cling to ways of doing things despite other ways, which then warms up those waters into a boiling, roiling, frolicking tidal wave of sacred whimsy and soul-expanding humor that crushes all creeds, codes, and canons.

The high laughter gained through brouhaha-ism expands all comfort zones, crumbles high-horses into kindling, and obliterates paradigms into paradox.

We discover that when we stare into the abyss it doesn’t matter if the abyss stares back, because even that is just as laughable, and maybe even more laughable, than anything else.

5.) The drive to play requires suppression of the drive to dominate

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.” ~ Tom Robbins

Through faux pas dynamics we’re free to practice reverse-dominance on ourselves and on others through sacred play. Work hard, play harder becomes the theme.

This expands our perspective not only because it helps us to not take ourselves too seriously, but also because it keeps morale high while empowering the disempowered and humbling the powerful.

In the long run this sort of sacred play, this good-natured ribbing, is a leveling mechanism that keeps things balanced enough to where power never gets to the point to where it becomes corrupt.

Faux pas dynamics compels us to be more sincere, but less serious, with ourselves and with each other. It laughs at all hardened hearts. It shatters all preconditioned molds and presubscribed states. It propels the mystic forward, catapulting his foolery into wisdom by jettisoning attachment and cultural conditioning while showing others how to do the same.

As Joseph Campbell said, “The schizophrenic is drowning in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.” Indeed. Being a walking, talking, proactive ball of laughing transparency is a sure-fire way to keep the powers-that-be in check while keeping your heart chakra spinning against moral complacency and your third eye wide open to Truth.

In the end, perhaps nobody has said it better than Mark Twain: “Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

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Toys by Edu Monteiro
Einstein quote
Dunno if laughable
Duncan quote

Six Ways to Leverage Open-mindedness in a Close-minded World

Issues

Gary Z McGee

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December 31, 2015

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Six Ways to Leverage Open-mindedness in a Close-minded World

“I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.” ~ Corazon Aquino

Everybody thinks they’re open-minded. Even close-minded people think they’re open-minded. So how do we ever really know if we’re open-minded or not?

Here’s the thing: The human condition is a briar patch. It’s all too easy to get stuck in comfortable patterns. It’s all too easy to cling to answers or beliefs. It’s all too easy to misunderstand our cognitive biases. It’s all too easy to think we’re right more often than we’re wrong.

It’s all too easy to take ourselves too seriously. And yet, on some level, we all understand that we’re really just a bunch of fallible, imperfect, prone-to-mistakes, fumbling, stumbling naked apes going through the motions of being mortal animals within an infinite cosmos. What’s a confused human to do?

Well, we can take the easy route, and just choose to accept everything we’ve been taught, or we can try the following tactics (just a few of many) to leverage open-mindedness despite an otherwise close-minded world.

1) Question everything

“Best way of learning –question. Best way of teaching –question.” ~ Dr. R. Prasad

This one seems easy enough. I mean, that famous graffito that says “Question Everything” has the retort “Why?” written right beneath it. Easy, right? Not so fast. I commend whoever wrote the retort for their wit, but I would respect them even more if they actually had an answer to the question.

So why should we question everything? The main reason we should question everything is so that we don’t inadvertently become the plaything of charlatans and snake-oil salesmen, frauds and swindlers, counterfeits and quacks.

Question even the one who tells you to question everything. As that cute little sixth grade girl said, “Question authority, including the authority that told you to question authority.” See? It’s so easy even a sixth grader gets it.

But, alas, it’s not children within whom the plague of close-mindedness has stricken. Children are at least attempting to leverage their own open-mindedness. No. It’s the adults who are carrying around the little crushed innocence of their open-mindedness in tiny boxes they claim to think outside of, in baskets they cling to for dear life, and in nutshells they vainly attempt to pigeonhole infinity (God) into.

We should question everything precisely because everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Impermanence is the only permanence. Even Truth seems to change on a long enough timeline. I mean, we used to think the sun revolved around the earth. We used to think a lot of things that turned out not to be true.

Like Aldous Huxley said, “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” Indeed. But if we were to question those histories, and question our interpretation of them, or lack thereof, we are less likely to be fooled again.

Then again, it was Mark Twain who wittily opined, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”

2) Practice probability

“The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.” ~ Douglas Adams

On a long enough timeline everything is possible. The problem is, we’re not on a long enough timeline to tell (at least perceptually). But within the short timeline we are given, we are capable of glimpsing a fundamental truth about reality: the highest probability of all is that things change.

Regardless of the law of conservation, things have always, and will always, change. The underlying energy may remain the same, but the form, and thus the way the energy is conducted, will change.

Embracing change through the lens of probability shatters all fixed worlds, even as it magnifies them. It frees the mind to create new mind, thus freeing the world to create new worlds. Embracing change while using the law of probability is a paradigm of intermittence. A numinous paradox. A grasping and a letting go, all at once.

An inhale and exhale in one gasp. Accepting change, embracing impermanence, is adopting freedom and maintaining the flexibility of the freed state, as opposed to the inflexibility of the fixed state. It’s standing on a high hill and declaring to the universe, “All things change, therefore I am open.”

Such a sacred opening is an invitation to the cosmos to become one through us, as opposed to against us. Indeed, the secret of open-mindedness is balancing precariously on the razor’s edge of probability while strategically moving between mindfulness and no-mind.

3) Take things into consideration instead of believe in them

“Belief is a wound that knowledge heals.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I’ve written entire articles on this subject. Suffice it to say, it feels like beating a dead horse. I can even picture Nietzsche, giant mustache twitching on his pinched face, changing his famous spiel to “God is a dead horse.”

Indeed, and we’re all beating the hell out of that poor horse, forgetting the insurmountable fact that we, each one of us, have the power to define and/or redefine the definition of God in any way we choose. Or, simply allow God to be synonymous with Infinity itself and let it be.

But no! We get attached to hand-me-down, outdated definitions instead. We open our mouths up wide for the parochial spoon-feeding of our forefathers. We blindly cling to our culturally conditioned faith to the extent to where we smother any semblance of open-mindedness we might have had once as children. “God” becomes a word used to control people, placate people, scare people, or guilt people into obeying ancient goods deemed uncouth by good reason and the passage of time.

And yet it can all be solved in one fell swoop with the simple switch to taking things into consideration instead of believing. Instead of clinging to the prison of outdated answers, we take those “answers” into consideration and then move on smartly into the freedom of updated questions.

But, and here’s the real kick in the pants, even the answers we come up with from our updated questions are not immune to becoming uncouth with the passage of time. After all, we could be wrong. And really, in the grand scheme of things, we probably are.

4) Embrace being wrong

“Fortune may favor the bold, but so does failure.” ~ Brene Brown

If the key to open-mindedness is understanding probability, then the cornerstone would have to be the ability to embrace being wrong. Because when we can admit to at least the possibility of our being wrong, it makes us less likely to cling to any outdated answers or beliefs that may be holding us back. Being wrong is going to happen, a lot. We’re only human after all.

We might as well get better at not being wrong by admitting to ourselves that our answers and beliefs are more than likely wrong. This gets us out of our own way, and we are free to speculate even further down the rabbit hole or up the wormhole.

Here’s a nice little witty reminder from Rob Brezsny that can help us with this: “”I don’t know” is an unparalleled source of power, a declaration of independence from the pressure to have an opinion about every single subject. It’s fun to say.

Try it: “I don’t know.” Let go of the drive to have it all figured out: “I don’t know.” Proclaim the only truth you can be totally sure of: “I don’t know.” Empty your mind and lift your heart: “I don’t know.” Use it as a battle cry, a joyous affirmation of your oneness with the Great Mystery: “I don’t know.””

5) Don’t mind what people think of you

“Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” ~ Albert Einstein

People are going to misunderstand you. That’s okay. Let them misunderstand you. Let your voice be heard anyway. Speak with your throat chakra in full flutter. Wear your heart on your sleeve, beating furiously against the fog of their shrewdness. Be the full-frontal version of yourself despite the naysayers, or even the brown-nosers. Let the burning fire of your open-mindedness blaze in the dried-up wasteland of their close-mindedness.

Mix it up. The best way to leverage open-mindedness in a close-minded world is to let it shine like a beacon in the dark. People won’t like that you’re poking holes in everything they take seriously. Poke holes anyway. And maybe, just maybe, some light might get through the smoke and mirrors that clouds them.

Maybe, just maybe, some of the layer-upon-layer of fog that has been blanketed over them by an unhealthy, hyper-real culture will begin to peel away. And maybe, just maybe, we can help them realize, paraphrasing Rumi, that they are searching among the branches for what only appears in the roots.

6) Stay curious

“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell others.” ~ Mary Oliver

You want to leverage open-mindedness despite the close-minded majority? Then stay curious. Rage against the withering of your mind. Seethe against the atrophy of your spirit.

Let the lightning strikes of your inquisitiveness boom like thunder in apathetic times. This life was meant to be felt fully, in all its glory. Feel the heart of curiosity blazing at the core of the human condition.

Turn and burn. Shock the system: yours, as well as the unhealthy one erected around you without your permission. Be amazed. Be overwhelmed. Be in awe at the Great Mystery of it all being connected somehow.

Don’t allow the smoldering wonder within you to be contained. Release it. Let your soul breathe. Seize the moment. Embrace the mystery. Teach others.

Image source:

Don’t be afraid of being open-minded
Question everything
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Stay curious

5 Ways to Deal with People You Dislike

Life

Sonali Bansal

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December 30, 2015

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“What you resist, persists.” ~ Carl Jung

Humans are fallible creatures and in our daily life we often come across people who trigger negativity in us or we don’t get along with but must tolerate.

Instead of focusing only on the negative aspect of that particular relationship or the reaction it evokes, it is better to understand the negative dynamics of the situation and how we might be transferring our own unconscious behavior on others.

The law of attraction relates to the fact that we often attract things, people and situations in our lives based on our thoughts and attitude. Some annoying quality in other people activates some aspect of ourselves that needs our attention.

So whatever we don’t own about ourselves we project onto other people.

Debbie Ford further explained this in her book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, “We see only that which we are. I like to think of it in terms of energy. Imagine having a hundred different electrical outlets on your chest. Each outlet represents a different quality. The qualities we acknowledge and embrace have cover plates over them. They are safe; no electricity runs through them. But the qualities that are not okay with us, which we have not yet owned, do have a charge. So when others come along who act out one of these qualities they plug right into us.”

According to Jungian archetypes the ‘shadow’ is the darker side of our psyche or those unconscious characteristics which are repressed by the conscious mind and considered unfit for exposure to the outside world.

Our shadow is closely related to our projections, and because we are unable to see the shadowy aspect of our own personality, we project them onto other people.

Here are five ways to deal with people you dislike –

1) Become aware of qualities you detest

The first step to navigating these tricky relationships is becoming aware of the qualities you find ugly or unacceptable in others, write down a list if that helps. Then, realize that these are qualities that might also exist within yourself. Make peace with these qualities, both within and without.

2) Identify and accept

Identifying the reason why they are irritating you and accepting that each person is fundamentally different & unique and to expect another to be like us is an irrational demand.

“If you recognize that there is only one like this, it is such precious material, how can it irritate you? Just turn around and see, people sitting next to you are absolutely unique human beings. There isn’t another one like that.. Never before, never again on this planet. Where is the question of irritation? You’re blind, that is why you are irritated,” ~ Sadhguru.

3) Change your way of thinking

Often when we dislike someone, we have a tendency to see them in black or blue colors of hatred and contempt. These feelings make us biased towards them and we don’t appreciate anything and everything they say or do.

In a situation when it is difficult for you to control the negative emotions, ask yourself simple questions like, ‘will it matter to me after a year?’ or ‘what if I’ before reacting or feeling frustrated.

For example, if your boss is shouting at you for any reason, think will it matter to you after five years from now, or what if you focus on positive alternatives instead. This approach will divert your attention and empower you, instead of making you feel helpless.

4) Pause & think

Before you, try making a conscious decision to. From this pause, you’ll be better able to proceed with a mind and heart that are at least slightly more open.

‘Pause’ is a powerful word when it comes to dealing with people you do not like. Stop, take a deep breath and replay the situation in your mind or give yourself space and time to consider the outcome or consequence of your reaction.

Make a conscious effort to put the judgment on hold for a second and think with a clear mind and heart.

5) Positive annoyance

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung

As mentioned earlier, we attract people in our lives with similar qualities as ours. Is it just the negative in others that annoys you or the positive as well? Sometimes we are ticked off by other people’s positive qualities as well.

For example, your friend might be over polite or kind towards others, which might come across as a way to be more liked by others. But what if this is a quality you want to own but are resisting in some way or the other?

If someone’s positive attributes annoy you, it is time you look within and use that annoyance as a tool to become a better person.

So the next time you find yourself in a situation with a person you dislike, be it anybody, try to search for similar attitude or qualities inside yourself. When you acknowledge those unacceptable parts of your personality, the need for justification and hostility towards that person will drastically reduce and you will be able to understand yourself and others better.

Remember, revenge will not lead to eternal gratification, peace of mind would, and the only person you can change is yourself.

How to Nurture your Child’s Higher Consciousness

Ester Eckhaus

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December 28, 2015

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How to Nurture your Child’s Higher Consciousness

“Every day, in a 100 small ways, our children ask, ‘Do you hear me? Do you see me? Do I matter?’ Their behavior often reflects our response.” ~ L.R. Knost

Many times we hear parents tell their child “say thank you”, or “say sorry,” to which the child will parrot the words back; but if they don’t understand the actual emotions behind the words, then it loses it’s meaning without actually getting ingrained in the child.

How can we teach gratitude and sympathy to children, instead of having them parrot meaningless words back to us or others?

One way to teach children (and in my opinion, the most effective way), is to engage them in conversations that will get them thinking on their own. Parroting will produce a child who may hit, and then knows to say sorry; but teaching children about the reasons and emotions behind these words will nurture your child’s higher consciousness, rather than a dictionary of words to use as instant responses.

Another way to teach children about these important things is to show them the world outside your door, and be ready to answer the many questions that will surely come.

Again, this gives your child a chance to explore reasons and emotions behind things, and also shows them the many kinds of people that inhabit the world with them. In order to teach your child acceptance and sympathy for others you must be able to show them this attitude in an environment that is outside their immediate world.

And lastly, to make a lasting impression, you must be ready to be the role model for them, This does not mean you are perfect around your children, as no one is, but to be ready to live these attitudes in a real and authentic way.

Here are some practical ways to nurture your child’s higher consciousness:

Give them a chance to think

– Have you ever asked a child what they are grateful for? Parents often tell children what they should be grateful for, but rarely ask the child what they feel about it. Ask your child what blessings they would put on their “count your blessings” list.

– Have a conversation with them about “thank you” and “I’m sorry.” Questions like “What makes you feel better when you’ve been hurt?” or, “What words make you feel good?” show children that their small words have an impact on others.

– Instead of teaching them the words they should use, teach them about the emotions behind the words, and they will pick up on the words on their own. Children will very often go past the empty words and also learn that hugging, supportive words, and treating people with respect, are just as important as “please” and “thank you.”

– The same way it is helpful for us to wake up and express gratefulness for our everyday miracles, so it is for children as well. Start up a conversation about gratefulness at breakfast in the morning, and see what your children express.

Give your children the language to express the things that they are happy about, and then later what they are grateful for.

Give them the opportunity to experience and question different environment

nurture your child's higher consciousness

– Another way to help children think about gratefulness and sympathy is to give them the opportunity to be involved in community and charity work. This gives children the chance to see the world past their own four walls, and also have a sense of helping others.

This shows children the benefits of being selfless and connected to others. When presented in the right way, this can be a very important experience for children to ask questions about other people’s lives, and what it means to be there for other people.

– Don’t avoid your child’s curious questions when you are out in the world together.

Questions such as: “What’s that lady doing?”, “Why does that person look different than me?”, “Why are those two men holding hands?,” or “Why does than boy have so many tattoos?”, are all opportunities to talk honestly with your child about the many kind of people and lifestyles. This opens them up to acceptance for others.

Lead by example

– If you follow a prayer ritual, give your children the chance to join in or ask questions about your personal experience. Instead of saying “I’m praying” or “I’m doing yoga,” explain to them that you are expressing thanks for the blessings in your life, or treating your body with love because you are grateful to have a beautiful functioning body.

The same is true for any other rituals that you follow. Do not force them on your children, but be there to explain the beauty behind yours and other’s rituals.

– Make sure to express to your children the same attitude you are expecting from them. Learn to say sorry to your children if you have done something wrong, and thankful when they have done something good for you.

Children follow by example, so make sure that you are not above these important words when it comes to interactions with your children, as these are the biggest learning experiences they will have.

– Avoid gossip or judgmental talk around your children. The things you say around your children are immediately soaked up by their molding minds.

– Practice speaking an enlightened language. Whether you say “I am so blessed,” or thank the sun and trees for their warmth and shade, your children learn a beautiful language that will later permeate their own speech.

I hope this gives you much insight, and sparks many interesting learning experiences for you and your loved ones.

Image source

Child grandma
Gratitude

Five Reasons Why Art is Vital for Human Flourishing

Artwork

Gary Z McGee

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December 26, 2015

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Five Reasons Why Art is Vital for Human Flourishing

“We have art lest we perish of the truth.” ~ Nietzsche

Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. And so it is. When it comes down to it the universe is really just another artist. It created the giraffe, the platypus, and the cat’s eye.

It miraculously created the mind of mankind, which it uses like a paint brush of meaning dipped in Time and painted upon an infinite canvas of otherwise meaningless space.

More importantly, it has creatively evolved conscious awareness, a vast network of perception that has the audacity to imagine what art is, and what art could be in the future. In order to attain a full engagement with our humanity, we must involve ourselves with art that transcends our current knowledge of things.

Art that launches our souls into heightened states of awareness. Art that networks, bridges gaps, and connects dots in a mighty cosmos otherwise devoid.

As Novalis said, “The seat of the soul is there where the inner and outer worlds meet.” One could convincingly argue that the seat of the soul resides within art.

1) Art keeps us thoughtful

“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Art has a way of keeping our minds on red alert like no other domain. It engages our minds mentally, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Whether through music, poetry, painting, or photography, all art re-familiarizes our minds with the unfamiliar. It causes us to think strategically, despite ourselves.

When we engage with art, whether by creating it or by witnessing it, we provoke our tendency toward comfort, security, and complacency and cause a controlled state of discomfort, insecurity, and anxiety that, at least temporarily, stretches our comfort zone.

Art is like a magician, where instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, it pulls our minds out of its preconditioned box. Poetry shreds the box and inverts it with rhythm and rhyme. Painting flattens the box into a canvas and watercolors it into further revealing itself. Music implodes the box and transcends it with treble and bass.

Photography captures the box and puts it into another box, giving it a taste of its own medicine. Indeed, art goads world-weariness into worldliness, where we have no choice but to be on the edge of our seats, thoughtful and full of hope, for the next artistic revelation.

2) Art is therapeutic and cathartic

“It is better to make mistakes than to do nothing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Almost any psychological hang-up, anxiety, neurosis, or stress can be absolved through the artistic process. Looking and listening to art will only get you so far, but creating it, that’s where the real medicine is.

Whether it’s losing yourself in flow states writing poetry, gelling musically with others playing jazz, or moving meditatively through dance or martial arts, art drowns our anxiety and stress in proactive creativity.

Time speeds up. Time slows down. There’s no time to balk while in the throes of artistic metanoia. Or, there’s all the time in the world in order to put it all in perspective.

Art guides us. Art consoles us. Art helps us better understand our complex lives, and our even more complex selves. Art is psychic therapy used to exorcize the shadow content of the psyche, and introduce it to the conscious mind. The exorcism is the artistic act itself. It’s in the throes of creativity where the shadow content is revealed and then used as a medium.

The finished artwork is the conscious revelation. And lo, poison is transformed into medicine. It’s not magic, but it is magical. And the best part about it? We’re having fun. We’re happy. We’re caught up in the magical transformation from stagnating victim to flourishing cosmic hero, and it’s beyond wonderful.

3) Art helps us with loneliness

“Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.” ~ Chuck Klosterman

Art makes you feel. Good art makes you feel deeply. Creating good art makes you feel infinite. And when you feel infinite, loneliness gets put into proper perspective. You come to realize that you’re never truly alone. How could you be?

The interdependent dance simply won’t allow for it. And yet, there it is, loneliness, crippling us into independent agents unable to feel what another person is feeling. Unable to be anyone but ourselves. Locked in our own skin. Forced to see the world through the limitation of our own senses.

But art can help us even with this kind of deep loneliness. In fact, some of the best art was made out of the fodder of such loneliness. Art brings creative meaning into existence that could not have otherwise existed.

One must have been an independent agent, tapping into interdependence, in order to have created a piece of art that dwarfs the loneliness that compelled it.

Art takes the deep loneliness, the existential angst, the great suffering at the heart of being an individual in an interdependent cosmos, and magnifies it into a heightened state of creative detachment. It’s absolutely godlike. And yet terribly, painfully human.

As Alain de Botton said in Art as Therapy, “One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.”

4) Art helps us appreciate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences

“For aren’t you and I gods? Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Release life’s rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying. Everything is screaming. Laughing. Running.” ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Sometimes art seems to scream at us: “Stop letting routine dull your aliveness. Don’t allow the tyranny of habit to undermine your vivacity.” Sometimes we manage to listen, but most of the time we don’t.

Art helps us slow down time and be present. It has a way of bringing us into the here and now. Whether we’re viewing art or creating it, the freedom of the moment is absolute, and we’re able to appreciate the vitality of the ordinary while viewing the extraordinary. We come to the revelation that there are no ordinary moments.

Like Nabokov said, “everything is blooming.” Indeed, everything is caught in the ecstatic throes of being everything. It’s a veritable cosmic jouissance. And we’re the godlike creatures with animal hearts caught in absolute awe of the mysterious slow dance of it all.

But it’s within the flow of the creative act, in the throes of the artistic process, where the extraordinary becomes the superordinary, or even metaordinary. The anarchy inherent within the creative act liberates us from the tyranny of our habits, and gradually the Great Mystery coalesces with our burgeoning soul and we’re howling, laughing, flying, and completely unfettered.

5) Art rebalances The Force (Qi, Mana, Prana, Pneuma)

“Aren’t we talking about mercy and its dark twin? Isn’t that what is pummeling history in the side as I write this? Isn’t it the thorn and the taser? Isn’t it the chokehold and the gold arm of vengeance?

I say it from my mouth and when it spills forth it lands on the ground in a pool of light reflecting back at me the one true blasphemy: Love and love and love and love is crowding the street and needs only air and it lives, over there, in the distance, burning.” ~ Tina Chang, Fury

Art is numinous. Art is provident. Art is a counterintuitive, alchemically binding force. Especially while in the creative process. Art is an energy that binds the mind-body-spirit into soulcraft. With such soulcraft we become world-builders.

With Prana in one hand and Pneuma in the other, we become cosmic expanders, connecting the dots of this mythology with the dots of that mythology. With Mana in our heart and Qi in our soul, we creatively realign Cosmos with Psyche, and Nature with the human spirit.

It is through art that we existentially stabilize and spiritually equalize. It is through art where the past meets the future within the almighty present. It is through art that we’re born, live, die, and are reborn again. Art is the ultimate leveling mechanism, used since time immemorial for keeping our social and political animal-like natures in proper balance.

Art is vital for human happiness, the keystone that unlocks the heartstone of Eudaimonia and the cornerstone of a life well lived.

Image source:

Ace of hearts
Man tree
Butterfly head
Eclipse

Fractal Enlightenment

1.) We’re more capable of eating humble-pie

2.) We’re better able to engage sacred laughter rather than profane reverence

3.) We’re more able to laugh off our halo lest it slip down to choke us

4.) We’re free to mock all isms with Brouhaha-ism

5.) The drive to play requires suppression of the drive to dominate

Well, we can take the easy route, and just choose to accept everything we’ve been taught, or we can try the following tactics (just a few of many) to leverage open-mindedness despite an otherwise close-minded world.

1) Question everything

2) Practice probability

3) Take things into consideration instead of believe in them

4) Embrace being wrong

5) Don’t mind what people think of you

6) Stay curious

Here are five ways to deal with people you dislike –

1) Become aware of qualities you detest

2) Identify and accept

3) Change your way of thinking

4) Pause & think

5) Positive annoyance

Here are some practical ways to nurture your child’s higher consciousness:

Give them a chance to think

Give them the opportunity to experience and question different environment

Lead by example

1) Art keeps us thoughtful

2) Art is therapeutic and cathartic

3) Art helps us with loneliness

4) Art helps us appreciate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences

5) Art rebalances The Force (Qi, Mana, Prana, Pneuma)

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