Deride

Eyes Searching

“So through the eyes love attains the heart:

  For the eyes are the scouts of the heart.”

Though I first heard the second line from Joseph Campbell, I recently tracked down the original source, a 12^th century poet named Guirant de Borneilh. It’s something I quote frequently because years of teaching art students has shown how differently they can look at the same thing. Through seeing we discover what we care about because in any scene we are choosing where to look. The sight stirs us, enlivens interest. The choice within the scene is the beginning of its significance. Our eyes search out what is most meaningful, beautiful or necessary, alert to our inner priorities, attuned to the dynamics of the moment. Vision leads the way. The choices made from a world on all sides are personal, guided by the heart.

I’ve read the same advice in meditation instruction from both eastern and western religions. To quiet the mind and observe silence also involves “Curbing the eyes”. Images are triggers to worlds of association, so even to glance at a sound is to stimulate and stir up mental processes.

Art opens a very personal channel through this capacity of the eyes. Art shows what matters most to the artists so deals with the deepest levels of being human. When you respond to a painting it’s because you recognize and understand what’s being shown. Something unarticulated is being clarified.  The images that resonate stir the thoughts we need to have.

It’s a largely untapped resource because so many people don’t think art is for them even though they may have themselves taken or been struck by a wonderful picture. The philosopher Susanne Langer once said “Art looks like feelings feel.”  She felt that human psychology would be better expressed by art than by psychological theories. It can be so much more specific to refer to a portrait by Egon Scheile to communicate a complex emotion, than using the same tired words. Spending time with art you like is a way of learning about yourself and a connection to someone who has understood the way you feel.

Much is made of listening to the voice within, but intuition starts before words. We see what fits or doesn’t belong in a scene and how to navigate the terrain. The intelligence of perception is largely taken for granted, but developing the attunement to the whole, the gestalt, is becoming more urgent. Enlarging perspective means including more points-of-view, and not treating issues in isolation without seeing the repercussions.

Self-Portrait by Egon Schiele

Withhold

In Defense of Love

The first time I saw Marianne Wlliamson speak on a news show, it was exhilarating to hear someone pierce the skin of approved narratives and speak a deeper truth. Whether it was about going to the roots of what was happening in the countries the migrants were leaving, or questioning the tyranny of medical authority, she championed freedom of thought and awareness of our need for connection. She spoke articulately with insight and courage. So after the first debate it was disturbing to hear one of the talking heads call her candidacy an embarrassment. Maybe ratings depend on binaries and which side is right, but to solve today’s problems we need to get beneath the polarization that keeps everything on the surface. There is a bigger picture to be faced and today’s young people know it.

Where Williamson uses the term love, news commentators call it woohoo, proving just how far the news media has been dragged into Trump’s sphere of negativity. They seem much more comfortable with hate, showing their attachment by how much they talk about it and demonstrate their derision with raised eyebrows and sneering tones. They deride the territory of love because they don’t understand it. Family life today is shaped by standards to be met, judgment, criticism and control, that puts tremendous pressure on children, some start thinking about college in middle school. Many levels of fear are formed by the habits of avoiding punishment and trying to measure  up. Attention is focused on the surface, people are divided deliberately because so much power would be available if they’re unified by their common core.

Human striving for connection is built in. I heard in a Ted Talk, that Oxytocin, thought mainly to be associated with touch and the creation of bonds, is part of the stress response, prompting us to seek out others. People naturally help each other in a crisis and superficial differences don’t stand in the way. Chronic stress is a global condition. We need human contact to rise to the demands of our situation. Cultivating cooperation, choosing a place that’s out of balance to work with others restoring, builds a habit of behavior that stimulates good brain chemistry, even on a small scale. Oxytocin feels good, makes us want to do more of what stimulated it.

Ignoring attempts to put us in categories and pit them against each other, we are able to see the value from different ways of seeing each contributing a particular view that is true from that position. Studies show we become more creative when working with people from different cultures. No one has the right to lay their template on another. With different insights from a range of backgrounds we can stop putting band-aids on problems and see what’s causing the wounds. Active choices are how we discover ourselves, learn what works and what doesn’t.

It’s time to rethink the cultural legacy of opposition and competition and find ways to solve big problems with cooperation and compassion.

Measure

Virtuosity

This year’s Wimbledon was awash in pleasure chemicals as my mirror neurons got to experience the pure joy that comes with hard-won achievement. My admiration accumulated throughout the tournament, impressed by the physical intelligence and determination. It’s one of the reasons I watch tennis, for the uplift that comes from watching people who invest it all, a visible commitment. When I first discovered tennis by accident, it was the expression on Bjorn Borg’s face that caught me. I felt honored to see so deeply into a face exposed by intense concentration. This year, when Coco Gauff, at 15, beat legendary Venus Williams at 37, I got choked up with her, stirred by high grade empathy through the mirror neuron system.

This year’s Wimbledon ended with a historic match between legendary Roger Federer and the current number one, the intense and explosive Novak Djokovic. Five hours of such high quality tennis, it could have gone either way. Djokovic came out on top in an amazing battle between the best. As is always the case watching a great match, I felt improved by the opportunity to experience the sensations of triumph and the quickened urge to strive in my own work.

Whenever I watch tennis I find myself thinking about virtuosity, the places the culture encourages it and the places it doesn’t. No one would argue with the authority of winning a championship. Sports excellence is part of our cultural ethos so I wonder what it means that individual skillfulness has been discouraged in schools in an effort to equalize. This ignores the capability of every student to achieve in their own way. Each student should be able to experience for themselves a sense of genuine achievement, starting with finding things they love to do.

Improving at something and all the attendant good brain chemistry is available at any level.

There are unexplored layers of skills in the spectrum between knowledge of computer systems to video games and that’s just one area. The increasing use of visual organization of information is enabling us to juggle larger concepts and use mental capacities that have been ignored.

I remember a study done at a time when time watching TV was at its height showing that a person’s mood worsened the longer they watched. The same would also be true of watching YouTube. Today’s knowledge about brain chemistry shows that dopamine is stimulated by activity, that challenge is best of all because it commands full attention and full attention is the zone. Good brain chemistry comes with effort, building skills, learning new things, extending understanding of who we are by what we choose to do. The ability to get better and better at something stimulates a general confidence no matter what it is.