Francis Bacon — Mystery

Life is mysterious and full of questions with few answers. The job of the creative leader is not to provide the answers but to help his audience to explore the questions at even deeper levels. 

Life at its core is spiritual in nature. The artist connects the spiritual with the mysterious and fills the heart with joy. Our challenge as writers, artists and creative leaders is to reach deep within our spirits and share the magical mystery of the heart.

What spiritual questions are you exploring in your art? Your writing? Your acting? Your dancing? What is the mysterious hidden within your creation? What is the song sung from your heart?

Linus Pauling — Curiosity

Are you curious about the world around you? Are you searching for new information and ideas? Are you asking questions and looking for answers? Are you challenging the status quo? Do you doubt what people accept at truth? 

Do you question the world around you? Do you ask: why? how? when? where? Do you challenge the assumptions of others? Do you challenge your own assumptions? Do you challenge your beliefs? Do you question your habits? Or do you simply accept what was taught you? 

Do you accept without question the statements of experts? Do you question what you read in the newspaper or hear on television? Are you willing to think differently than those around you? Do you hang out with people who think like you do? Or do you surround yourself with people who think differently than you?

Creative leaders seek out new ideas and new ways of seeing the world. We need and want answers to our questions. Part of our thrill in life is learning something new — figuring out something we didn't know.

Creative leaders need a strong sense of curiosity about the world they inhabit. They should not satisfied with the pat answers of the past. The challenge is in finding new answers to some of the age old questions.

Harley King

We are all faced with important and not so important decisions.  Sometimes we make decisions quickly with little or no forethought.  And sometimes we spend days, weeks and even months trying to make up our minds.  Often once we have made our decision we begin to have second thoughts.  Did we make the right decision?  Maybe we should have chosen the other direction.  We begin to vacillate and question ourselves.  We doubt ourselves.

As creative leaders, we must learn to trust our instincts.  We need to train our hearts to listen to the little voice inside.  This voice is often overshadowed by its big brother — analysis.  And yes, there is a time and place for analysis, but not after the decision has been made.  You need to believe in your ability to make the right decision.  You need to accept the decisions that you make.

While we may make bad decisions, we should never regret the decisions that we make.  We should not dwell in the past.  Learn from your mistakes.  And if possible, change your decision.  If you find that new job that you accepted was not as promoted, you can always find another one.  Don't live regretting bad decisions.  Change them.  And learn to trust that soft inner voice that knows the right answer.

Five Ways to Make Better Decisions

1. Research and analyze the various options prior to making a decision.  Make a list of pros and cons.
2. Find a quiet place, relax, and meditate on the decision.
3. Never make a decision when tired.  Sleep on the decision and make it in the morning when you are fresh.
4. Cultivate your ability to hear that soft voice inside your heart.
5. Accept that you made the right decision.  Don't doubt yourself.  Don't regret your decision.

May you trust yourself enough 

to accept the decisions you make.

Albert Einstein

"Don't think about why you question, simply don't stop questioning.  Don't worry about what you can't answer, and don't try to explain what you can't know.  Curiosity is its own reason."

— Albert Einstein

German Theoretical Physicist

1879 - 1955

Commentary

Do you question the world around you?  Do you ask: why? how? when? where?  Do you challenge the assumptions of others?  Do you challenge your own assumptions?  Do you challenge your beliefs?  Do you question your habits?  Or do you simply accept what was taught you?  Do you accept without question the statements of experts?  Do you question what you read in the newspaper or hear on television?  Are you willing to think differently than those around you?  Do you hang out with people who think like you do?  Or do you surround yourself with people who think differently than you?

There is so much that we don't know.  The more I learn; the less I feel I know.  Are you curious about the world in which you live?  Are you curious about your neighbors?  Your friends?  The physical world?  The world of the mind?  Are you curious about what you do not know?  Have you stopped learning?  Stopped reading?  Stopped growing?

There is a story of a man who was watching his wife cook a pot roast.  She cut off the end of the pot roast before putting it in the pot.  He asked her why?  She said that was what her mother always did.  Since she was curious, she called her mother and asked her why she cut off the end of the pot roast?  Her mother said because her grandmother did.  The woman called her grandmother and asked her why she always cut off the end of the pot roast.  And the grandmother said that she cut off the end because the pot was too small.  What habits have you formed that are based on out-of-date information?  What habits do you need to change?

Creative Practice

This week take a belief, an assumption or a habit that you have held your for most of your life and question it?  Challenge your assumptions. What assumptions have you made about the creative process?  Or creative people?  Painters?  Writers?  Actors?  Find out why you believe what you believe.  Where did the belief come from?  Where did the habit come from?  What makes it valid?  Is it true?  Or is it false?

Biography

Albert Einstein was born In Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879 to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Einstein.  His father was a salesman and an engineer.  The Einsteins were non-observant Jews.  Albert attended a Catholic elementary school for three years.  Einstein built models and mechanical devices and showed a talent for mathematics.  In 1900, Einstein earned a Zurich Polytechnic teaching diploma.  He married Mileva Maric in 1903.  They had two sons born in 1904 and 1910.  They divorced in 1914 and less than 4 months later he married Elsa Lowenthal, his first cousin.  She died in 1936.  Albert and Elsa immigrated to the United States in 1933.  Einstein became a U. S. citizen in 1940.

Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1955.  When he was admitted to the hospital, he refused surgery, saying: "I want to go when I want.  It is tasteless to prolong life artificially.  I have done my share, it is time to go.  I will do it elegantly.  He died the next morning at the age of 76.

David Handler

"A writer like me is sort of like a sponge; you just soak up everything around you."

— David Handler

American Novelist
1952 -

Every creative person should be a sponge soaking up the world around them.  Information is fodder for the creative muse.  Information keeps us alive and ticking.  Information inspires us.  What new ideas have you encountered today?  What new pieces of seemingly useless information have you added to your memory?  What questions have you raised that you do not know the answers to?  

Brain Exercise:  Take a moment and write down ten questions you wish you knew the answers to.  Then for the next ten days make up an answer to one of the questions and write your answer down.

Here is David Handler talking about writing.

William Trevor

"I believe in not quite knowing.  A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning.  I write out of curiosity and bewilderment."

— William Trevor

Irish Novelist

1928 -

I believe that all creative leaders need to doubt and question.  If we just accept the world as is, there is no progress.  It is only through doubt that we are able to follow new paths and create new opportunities.  Cultivate the doubt in you life.  Use it to find your way.  Some people have a difficult time living in the uncertainty of doubt.  They want everything to be black and white.    Unfortunately, that is not the real world.  Uncertainty is a given.  You and I don't know when we will die.  Or when we are born.  Security is momentary.  Success is fleeting.  Learn to live with doubt.  Learn to question.  Learn to be curious.  Then maybe you will be happy.

Cristina Marrero

"To question the world around us and all its complexities is not blasphemy, but simply using the mind God gave us for its intended purpose.  God is an artist.  Artists do not create to have someone just glance and say, "That is pretty."  Artists want viewers to look closer, deeper — to really see what they have created — not just glance."

— Cristina Marrero

Puerto Rican Writer

1989 - 

To question is the essence of being an artist.  We should never accept the world as it seems.  We should dig deeper and explore the layers truth woven in the fabrics of our existence.  And then we need to reveal what we found for the world to see.  Those who accept the faith of their fathers without question will have a fragile faith.  Those who question the status quo and challenge the accepted wisdom will eventually strengthen their faith.

Have you paid your dues?  Have you dug deep within your soul to discover the truth?  Or have you skated on the surface, accepting what everyone sees?  I challenge you to go deeper within yourself and find the essence of what you believe.  And then share the truth you find in your creative work.

Roberto Bolano

"You have to know how to look even if you don't know what you're looking for."

— Roberto Bolano

Chilean Novelist, Poet

1953 - 2003

One of the functions of artists and writers is to see the world in ways that nobody else does and at the same time help others to see the world in new ways.  I have often found that the best novels teach me new things about the world that I had not previously discovered.    Creative leaders may not know what they are looking for, but they will recognize it when they see it and they will find a way to communicate it to others.

Do you know how to look at the world?  What makes your way of viewing the world unique?  Do you know what you are looking for?  Have you found it or are you still looking?  Do you appreciate your unique vision of the world?  Have you accepted your vision of how the world should be?  Have you communicated your vision to others?

Here is a poem by Roberto Bolano from his book, The Romantic Dogs, translated by Laura Healy.

Self Portrait At Twenty Years

I set off, I took up the march and never knew
where it might take me. I went full of fear,
my stomach dropped, my head was buzzing:
I think it was the icy wind of the dead.
I don't know. I set off, I thought it was a shame
to leave so soon, but at the same time
I heard that mysterious and convincing call.
You either listen or you don't, and I listened
and almost burst out crying: a terrible sound,
born on the air and in the sea.
A sword and shield. And then,
despite the fear, I set off, I put my cheek
against death's cheek.
And it was impossible to close my eyes and miss seeing
that strange spectacle, slow and strange,
though fixed in such a swift reality:
thousands of guys like me, baby-faced
or bearded, but Latin American, all of us,
brushing cheeks with death.

Fernando Del Paso

Venus de Milo
Ancient Greek Statue

"Literature and music exist in time: they have a beginning and an end.  Painting and sculpture exist in space. . . . Where does the Venus de Milo begin: in her navel, in her breasts, or in her head?  Where does an abstract painting begin: in the lower left corner, or in the center?"

— Fernando Del Paso

Mexican Novelist, Painter and Poet

1935 -

Back of
Venus de Milo

De Paso has raised a very interesting question:  where does a painting or a sculpture begin?  When analyzing a painting, people often identify at what point the eye is drawn into the painting.  At what point do we the viewer enter into the picture?  But that point of entry is not the beginning of the painting.  In fact, paintings and sculptures have no beginning.  They just are here and now.

The flip side of this question is:  where does the novel exist?  In the head of the writer?  On the pages of the book it is printed in?  In cyberspace somewhere?  Or in the head of the reader?  And what novel are we talking about?  Is the novel that is in the writer's head the same as the novel on the page?  Is the novel that is in the reader's head the same as what is in the writer's imagination?  

Fernando Del Paso

How many times have you as a reader altered the novel on the page by changing the looks of a character or the physical location of the story.  Unlike the painting which is concrete and visual, the novel is nebulous and changing.  Yes, we can impose our stories upon the painting, but the painting still exists outside of us.  We change the novel as soon as it enters our brain.  We have altered the story as imagined by the novelist.

Have you ever wished that a novel would not end?  You may even have slowed down your reading so that the ending would be delayed?  Novels exist in time and have a beginning and a ending, but we can continue to revisit them through our memory. 

Grace Hartigan

Frank O'Hara

"I cannot expect even my own art to provide all the answers — only to hope to it keeps asking the right questions."

— Grace Hartigan

American Painter

1922 - 2008

What questions are you asking with your art?  One of the roles of a creative leader is to challenge the status quo?  To ask questions that others are afraid to ask.  Seldom do artists provide the answers.  Then we would be preaching.  Our job is to question and to question our questions?  To ask what others won't ask.

What questions are you raising with your art?  Your writing?  Your music?  In recent years my poems are questioning what God is.  I have had other writers tell me you can't write about God or the soul — that these words are too limited and vague.  And yet I know it is what I must write about.  I must raise the questions.  I must challenge our understanding of God.  I know I don't have the answers — that I will probably never have the answers, but I must keep asking.

Here is a fabulous video of Grace Hartigan talking about her art.  Be patient because the movie is slow to start.

Francis Bacon

Self-Portrait
(1971)

"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

— Francis Bacon

English Artist

1909 - 1992

The Study After
Velazquez's Portrait
of Pope Innocent X
(1953)

Life is mysterious and full of questions with few answers.  The job of the creative leader is not to provide the answers but to help his audience to explore the questions at even deeper levels. Life at its core is spiritual in nature.  The artist connects the spiritual with the mysterious and fills the heart with joy.  Our challenge has writers, artists and creative leaders is to reach deep within our spirits and share the magical mystery of the heart.  


What spiritual questions are you exploring in your art?  Your writing?  Your acting?  Your dancing?  What is the mysterious hidden within your creation?  What is the song sung from your heart?

Linus Pauling

"Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life."

— Linus Pauling

American Scientist

1901 - 1994

Are you curious about the world around you?  Are you searching for new information and ideas?  Are you asking questions and looking for answers?  Creative leaders seek out new ideas and new ways of seeing the world.  We want answers to our questions.  Part of our thrill in life is learning something new — figuring out something we didn't know.

Creative leaders need a strong sense of curiosity about the world they inhabit.  They are not satisfied with the pat answers of the past.  The challenge is in finding new answers to the age old questions.

Anton Chekhov

"The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them."

— Anton Chekhov

Russian Writer

1860 - 1904

What questions are you asking?  Are you curious about the world around you?  Are you asking questions that challenge your beliefs?  As artists and writers we can get in a rut painting the same image over and over or writing the same story again and again.  What are you doing to keep your art fresh and new?  What new roads are you walking down?  What new mountains are you climbing?  Challenge yourself today to draw something you have never drawn, to write a story you have never written, to sing a song you have never sang.