No.19
| "something meaningful to me" by George (3/22.2007) |
Dear Rin
Thank you for your thoughtful letter and image.
“it’s all about me”
I’ve had several responses at different times since receiving it.
I will give it to you in pieces as it came to me.
Letter#1
What conversation we have!
Nothing ordinary that is for certain. This letter you send, very thoughtful. The image I have to ponder-dramatic rise and fall
of a continuous line.
“we have limitations, only a small tiny part of all”
yes, we mix with others, we are an ingredient in the world.
I wonder if the nature of happiness changes for us. What makes us happy? One time many years ago I was traveling in
Germany, hitchhiking, I had been alone for a long time. Woman in a passing car smiled at me, for no reason, made me more
happy than I can say. The light stands out brighter on a dark back ground. Happiness has to do with moments. Each happy
moment is like a star. Like the stars the most important things is the quality of the light.
Our I is a star. What is the night?
Today I had on such moment as you speak of, so clear, everything one. One life. Life and life source one.
What is all the jumble about? Interference?
Something disturbs and then…
My thoughts are not my own but I must think them. Images are fish from the river but I must catch them.
The days have been warm. I draw the ocean, the same scene over and over but always different. This is what I love, what
has meaning for me.
Letter#2
Yes, it is true, there is no getting around the self. The mainspring of our thinking, feeling, and willing, is the self. How do we
come to understand it? The self is a permeable being. Perhaps artists have a more self conscious awareness of self because
in their work they must always be asking themselves question ( or do they find themselves in this work because they are
always asking themselves questions?)
‘What does mean to whom?’
The first question must be,’ what does it mean to me’, otherwise how can it have meaning for others?
The self is the central station where all trains arrive and depart. Many times I feel, ‘Where did I take the wrong turn?’ ‘How
did I end up here?’’What am I doing here, anyway?
But there is no way out. When I was doing manual labor, which I have done most of my life, it was simple in a way. I could
always look at what I had done that day. It was outside of my self, objective.
But did not prevent the artist from popping out of every opportunity or boiling like a kettle inside.
One time, many years ago, I was working as gardener for a large oil company. One day an order came down from the offices
to dig a hole in an exact location. Very important-Urgent! No one knew what it was for. The dimensions had to be exact 3’x3’
x3’, one cubit yard, nine cubic feet-exact-walls perpendicular, floor, level-very difficult to do with dirt-every square,
everything true. The foreman got us on the task immediately. He watched our every move. Picks and shovels, muscles and
sweat, all at top speed but all the time perfect. No one knew what the hole was for or who had given the order. One boss
came down from the offices, looked at the hole, scratched his head, then another and another. They talked it over, re-read
the note, asked questions, got coffee, smoked, spat, joked and went back up to the office. This went on all morning. The
work slowed down. It was hot, summer, the sun was high, sweat rolled down, our shirts were soaked. We had to stop,
check, measure, correct. Finally, after hours, the hole was finished. The hole had become famous. Everyone at the plant was
talking about it. The president of the company came down to have a look. The president himself (he had been a general in
the army) came to see what this hole was about. He was a short, thin, wiry man with white hair and small penetrating eyes.
He looked around to all his subordinates. Looked in their faces, looked in their eyes. They all looked down or to the side. He
didn’t look into our eyes. We were the innocents, the workers, we did not count. It was the eyes of the managers that
looked down like shamed school boys. “Who ordered this hole?” he asked searchingly. No one had an answer.”Fill it up!” he
commanded. Some things are apparently meaningless. At best they are somebody’s joke. What has meaning? The artist
keep asking in the face of the riddle, but certainly not only the artist, it is a universal human question. Our life is a riddle.
Meaning has something to do with love. Either we love what is meaningful or it is meaningful because we love.
Letter#3
I believe we are evolutionary beings. Ours is a gradual development over many lifetimes. It is complex with interweaving of
beings, not only human but others also. Indeed, it is as you say, we play a very small in this evolutionary drama, but we are
one of the ingredients; we play a part. This why I think our lives have meaning.
Letter#4
So many of your experiences are similar to mine. Do we have these experiences because we are artists or are artists
because of more fundamental experiences?
Letter #5
Life presents itself as a riddle. At the center of this riddle is the I. It is the center of the universe, my individual I, but
because it is I who ask the question. It is I and only I who can ask ‘why am I here?’ I do not have a single original thought
on the subject of the I. Every thought that I think has already been thought by others. Yet it is original in as much as it is I
who think it.
What we are dong here is a great mystery. We keep asking, seeking, what else can we do? Do our personalities contain an
answer or are they rather players in the great mystery drama?
At the end of last year, when I was in Brooklyn, I had the feeling I wanted to do something entirely new, something entirely
different with my life. When I told my daughter this she said, “Dad, you are 56 years old, what are you going to do? You are
an artist. Can you change that now?”
My whole life, my whole drama has developed around this artist. Is it me? It is something meaningful to me.
My response:
“Something meaningful to me”
Love and Peace,
George
Thank you for your thoughtful letter and image.
“it’s all about me”
I’ve had several responses at different times since receiving it.
I will give it to you in pieces as it came to me.
Letter#1
What conversation we have!
Nothing ordinary that is for certain. This letter you send, very thoughtful. The image I have to ponder-dramatic rise and fall
of a continuous line.
“we have limitations, only a small tiny part of all”
yes, we mix with others, we are an ingredient in the world.
I wonder if the nature of happiness changes for us. What makes us happy? One time many years ago I was traveling in
Germany, hitchhiking, I had been alone for a long time. Woman in a passing car smiled at me, for no reason, made me more
happy than I can say. The light stands out brighter on a dark back ground. Happiness has to do with moments. Each happy
moment is like a star. Like the stars the most important things is the quality of the light.
Our I is a star. What is the night?
Today I had on such moment as you speak of, so clear, everything one. One life. Life and life source one.
What is all the jumble about? Interference?
Something disturbs and then…
My thoughts are not my own but I must think them. Images are fish from the river but I must catch them.
The days have been warm. I draw the ocean, the same scene over and over but always different. This is what I love, what
has meaning for me.
Letter#2
Yes, it is true, there is no getting around the self. The mainspring of our thinking, feeling, and willing, is the self. How do we
come to understand it? The self is a permeable being. Perhaps artists have a more self conscious awareness of self because
in their work they must always be asking themselves question ( or do they find themselves in this work because they are
always asking themselves questions?)
‘What does mean to whom?’
The first question must be,’ what does it mean to me’, otherwise how can it have meaning for others?
The self is the central station where all trains arrive and depart. Many times I feel, ‘Where did I take the wrong turn?’ ‘How
did I end up here?’’What am I doing here, anyway?
But there is no way out. When I was doing manual labor, which I have done most of my life, it was simple in a way. I could
always look at what I had done that day. It was outside of my self, objective.
But did not prevent the artist from popping out of every opportunity or boiling like a kettle inside.
One time, many years ago, I was working as gardener for a large oil company. One day an order came down from the offices
to dig a hole in an exact location. Very important-Urgent! No one knew what it was for. The dimensions had to be exact 3’x3’
x3’, one cubit yard, nine cubic feet-exact-walls perpendicular, floor, level-very difficult to do with dirt-every square,
everything true. The foreman got us on the task immediately. He watched our every move. Picks and shovels, muscles and
sweat, all at top speed but all the time perfect. No one knew what the hole was for or who had given the order. One boss
came down from the offices, looked at the hole, scratched his head, then another and another. They talked it over, re-read
the note, asked questions, got coffee, smoked, spat, joked and went back up to the office. This went on all morning. The
work slowed down. It was hot, summer, the sun was high, sweat rolled down, our shirts were soaked. We had to stop,
check, measure, correct. Finally, after hours, the hole was finished. The hole had become famous. Everyone at the plant was
talking about it. The president of the company came down to have a look. The president himself (he had been a general in
the army) came to see what this hole was about. He was a short, thin, wiry man with white hair and small penetrating eyes.
He looked around to all his subordinates. Looked in their faces, looked in their eyes. They all looked down or to the side. He
didn’t look into our eyes. We were the innocents, the workers, we did not count. It was the eyes of the managers that
looked down like shamed school boys. “Who ordered this hole?” he asked searchingly. No one had an answer.”Fill it up!” he
commanded. Some things are apparently meaningless. At best they are somebody’s joke. What has meaning? The artist
keep asking in the face of the riddle, but certainly not only the artist, it is a universal human question. Our life is a riddle.
Meaning has something to do with love. Either we love what is meaningful or it is meaningful because we love.
Letter#3
I believe we are evolutionary beings. Ours is a gradual development over many lifetimes. It is complex with interweaving of
beings, not only human but others also. Indeed, it is as you say, we play a very small in this evolutionary drama, but we are
one of the ingredients; we play a part. This why I think our lives have meaning.
Letter#4
So many of your experiences are similar to mine. Do we have these experiences because we are artists or are artists
because of more fundamental experiences?
Letter #5
Life presents itself as a riddle. At the center of this riddle is the I. It is the center of the universe, my individual I, but
because it is I who ask the question. It is I and only I who can ask ‘why am I here?’ I do not have a single original thought
on the subject of the I. Every thought that I think has already been thought by others. Yet it is original in as much as it is I
who think it.
What we are dong here is a great mystery. We keep asking, seeking, what else can we do? Do our personalities contain an
answer or are they rather players in the great mystery drama?
At the end of last year, when I was in Brooklyn, I had the feeling I wanted to do something entirely new, something entirely
different with my life. When I told my daughter this she said, “Dad, you are 56 years old, what are you going to do? You are
an artist. Can you change that now?”
My whole life, my whole drama has developed around this artist. Is it me? It is something meaningful to me.
My response:
“Something meaningful to me”
Love and Peace,
George