One Apple A Day #663 - systems, drawings and bows
Sometimes I dig too much.
I think in part it's because I'm naturally a reflective person, and in part for the work I do. I study ways to help people remove their limiting beliefs and unearth their true selves. So, I think it's natural to do the same thing on myself. To ask me the challenging questions.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work so well.
Sometimes I just get trap into an inquiry spiral that leads to more confusion and can be exhausting.
I was sitting there meditating on this, and a few thoughts came to my mind.
The first one was a quote from Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray, a book that I love.
"If you're part of the system you want to change, you're part of the problem."
I believe it also works if you replace the verb "change" with "understand". It's hard to understand something from the inside.
The second thought is a trick that art teachers use to train the observation capabilities of new artists. They ask the students to focus on the negative spaces around the object they are required to draw and not on the object itself. This is because in drawing an object, the artist knows what that object is supposed to look like. She has a mental model in her head that keeps her from drawing precisely what her eyes see. Hence, when asked to paint everything but the object itself, the proportions are easier to get right. The observation is not conditioned by the mental models.
The last one was the voice of my friend Stefano telling me that "I need to unload the bow every now and then otherwise, the tension will break it."
Not sure how these three thoughts are connected, but my time for this writing practice is gone, and I definitely need breakfast.