by Marty Coleman | Jan 12, 2018 | Bert Hellinger, Creativity - 2009-2013 |
Seeing What Others Don’t
Because I am known to be an artist people aren’t surprised when I see things like patterns, details, connections, concepts, etc. that they don’t. They just chalk it up to ‘that’s because he is an artist.’ But I think people get it backwards. Seeing all those things is what made me an artist, not the other way around.
Not Saying No
Why did I and other artists see those things when others didn’t? Because we didn’t say ‘no’. We don’t dismiss an idea because it is not approved. We don’t dismiss a vision because it doesn’t make sense. We don’t dismiss a connection between things because the connection has never been made before. In other words we don’t follow rules.
Rule Followers, Rule Breakers
Wait, I take that back. We don’t follow some rules but we do follow others. That is why some artists are radicals and shock everyone (they follow very few rules) and other artists are the darlings of the rule followers (because they only break very insignificant rules, if any).
How Radical Are You?
in the context of the quote and illustration above you might say the skeptic is the radical, right? She broke the rules of her religion, no longer believing what her religion says she must believe. But if that skeptic merely exchanges one set of rules, the religious ones, for the skeptics’ set of rules, how much has really changed? How much has she really seen in a new or fresh way? It might appear she has at first since obviously there is a breaking away from a set of rules, but then she becomes as doctrinaire as she ever was as a religious follower and nothing really has changed.
Truly Free
The truly free person is the one who holds their ideas and rules lightly. It’s not that they never hold on to them but they aren’t bound to them to such an extent that they don’t see beyond them. They are willing to consider new and strange ideas, issues, images without judgment beforehand. They are willing to see connections that aren’t immediately apparent.
Drawing and commentary © 2018 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“Skepticism is like faith: both are substitutes for seeing.” – Bert Hellinger, 1925 – not dead yet, German Psychotherapist
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 10, 2018 | Adventures of Young Medusa |
Medusa Walks the Runway –
Medusa decided she wanted to be a model. She went to Stone Mountain Modeling School and got a job as a runway model. She walked for the famous House of Gorgon but wore an outfit no one really liked. They sat stone-faced as she walked by and, Medusa being Medusa, you know what happened next.
The End
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 4, 2018 | Trump |
Words Matter
When I was in my divorce years (the 2 years leading up to it) I remember how tentative my wife was in what she would say. She would say something like ‘Just because I am thinking about it, doesn’t mean I am going to act on it’. Then a few weeks or months later that thing she was just casually considering became real. Then it happened again and then again. Pretty soon I realized something. Some things are too radical for one to consider until they get used to the idea.
Little by Little
‘I will never get divorced’ becomes the mantra because getting a divorce is just too radical. Then after a series of mental and verbal negotiations with oneself it becomes “Divorce is ok if…”. Then more negotiations and “Divorce is what needs to happen.” It takes time but eventually people get there. But not at first. They talk themselves into it. I am not saying it’s wrong to talk yourself into it, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But it is how the process works because words and thoughts matter.
The Danger
That is the dangerous power of continually thinking negatively in one direction. You become what you think and say. If you fight back blindly against any slight without thinking about if there is validity or something to learn from that slight, then eventually you do it automatically with minimal choice in the matter. Like a dog trained to fight, that becomes your natural and unthinking reaction.
It’s sometimes called being stupid.
Drawing and commentary © 2018 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 20, 2017 | Christmas |
Alone in the Lonely
She sat alone at the coffee shop drawing with no one around her in the lonely (no, there is not supposed to be a word after ‘lonely’, I like it just like that) on December 24th at the levitating table. She drank an iced pine needle latte because her friend Justin (who is not really her friend and is not really named Justin but is obsessed with Justin Bieber so likes to be called Justin even though she is a girl) said she would like it and she ordered a Christmas Mustard & Peas Pie because her friend Beau (who really is named Beau but isn’t a boy but a girl whose mother is French and that is why) said she would like it. She didn’t like either one, had thrown up in the bathroom at the coffee shop as a result while an adolescent girl with pimples stared at her and decided she would not listen to them ever again. She also was beginning to get shingles and it hurt all over and she wasn’t suppose to be out because she might infect someone but she didn’t care. All she really cared about was if she could infect her pet ferret. She looked it up on the Google and it had nothing to say about it which proved to her how useless the Google was. Plus it was hard to eat anything with her bad tooth.
The Worst Story
She decided to write a Christmas story and made up a story about a Christmas Tree. It’s name was Chris and it was a talking Christmas Tree. He got famous when he made a video of himself talking early one morning before his owners were up. He posted it on YouTube and it got 25,000,000 views by the end of the day and became the most watched online video ever by the end of the week. Chris the Christmas Tree was flush with fame and money as a result but it couldn’t save him. Before the month was finished he was old, dry and brittle. He lost his ornaments, his tinsel and his gifts under the tree. His owners, not knowing how rich and famous he was online threw him to the curb where he was picked up and brought to the landfill. They found out about the million dollars in profit Chris had on YouTube, that they could have collected because Chris was a minor and the money would have gone to them, after it was too late and the profits had been distributed to a ‘Save the Christmas Trees’ charity. They sued YouTube and the Google and lost everything. In addition they were named the ‘Dumbest People of the Year’ in People magazine. They ended up addicted to Evergreen Car Fresheners, living in a trailer park and hating Christmas after that.
Worst Christmas Story Ever
Then she decided that was the Worst Christmas Story Ever, crumpled up the paper and wrote her shopping list instead, which included canned Spotted Dick, because it would be funny to put in the stocking of her mean uncle who groped her every holiday.
The End
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 17, 2017 | Samuel Johnson, Success - 2017 |
The Key
Ask any performer what is the key to her or his success and I bet a majority will say, ‘perseverance’. They just stuck with it audition after audition until they reached the success they wanted.
Now, replace the word ‘performer’ in the sentence about with almost any other profession or activity. Then replace ‘audition’ in the second sentence with whatever that new profession or activity needs to do repeatedly to be successful.
- Lawyer – litigation
- Artist – drawing
- Runner – race
- Accountant – tax return
- Pitcher – pitch
- Baker – cake
- Yogi – pose
You get the idea. What endeavor is it possible to succeed in without repeated effort in the same direction? None.
Perfection
Now, take one of the professions above (or add your own if it’s not listed) and ask yourself what is the likelihood that each and every audition, litigation, drawing, race, tax return, pitch, cake, or pose will have been done perfectly every time on that road to success? None.
What does that mean? It means that perseverance is not just about continuing to do something. It’s continuing to do something you are failing at. That you are no good at. That others do better than you. That people criticize you for. That you have no guarantee you will succeed at.
What does it take to have that sort of perseverance? Belief that it is what you are supposed to be doing, in spite of what it looks like at any one moment.
A Little Help From Your Friends
Last fall I had a runner in one of my running groups who was training for her first marathon. She had some seriously hard training runs that wiped her out and made her decide she just didn’t have it in her to do a full marathon. She told the group via Facebook that she was bummed and was going to switch to half marathon training. The response was an outpouring of ‘oh, have I been in your shoes before!’ comments. There was comment after comment talking about how she was bound to have crappy, hard times during a long season and that they knew she would be able to turn it around with a little tweak to her training, a little change in her mindset, a little prop up from her friends.
And she listened to us and stuck with the program. And 6 weeks later she ran her marathon and felt great about it. What was that? That was the way most people are able to persevere, with a little help from their friends.
Reach Out
So, if you are doubting yourself and your path but you really know you are supposed to be on it, then don’t be alone. Reach out and get that encouragement, that advice, that shoulder to cry on. Get whatever you need to keep going. Help is out there and it wants to help you.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer
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