The poet John Keats said that "negative capability" is a key ingredient for any artist. We demonstrate negative capability when we allow ourselves to remain present in the face of uncertainties, doubts and fear without emotional outbursts, bringing drama or reaching for fact or reason to use as a scapegoat or a life rope. When we, humans, are at our best, we become the artists of our personal life portraits. We can then be at the helm of our own ships, navigating the waters of life, able to overcome impatience and abstain from the need to control.
The Tao Te Ching tells us that all nature follows this process moving from conception to creation one step at a time.
A tree that grows beyond your reach
Springs from a tiny seed.
A building more than nine stories high
Begins with a small mound of earth.
A journey of a thousand miles
Begins with a single step. -- Tao #64 Lau Tzu 500 BCE
As we develop greater strength of character, we're able to face the unknown and to create new possibilities for ourselves. We begin to learn to detach and to recognize the cycles and the patterns that are always evolving within us and around us.
Everyone has moments of self-doubt when facing the unknown. Many of us are facing financial problems, some losing the family home to foreclosure. Some marriages are facing dissolution, either as a part of this sort of situation or due to some other marital malaise. The key is to remember that life is a journey, and we are always charting new paths. The more complex our lives, the more our courage, faith and resolve are tested. The question becomes, can we stay centered and keep moving forward?
The life process is much larger than we are. Conflict, challenges and the unknown will always be a part of the human experience. When faced with uncertainty, re-label this "bad feeling situation" as "contrast." As my old track coach use to tell me, when faced with a limit, a block or a disappointment: "Train through it." Be aware that contrast is a normal and healthy part of life's journey. Whether it is an illness, a financial problem or a familial issue, the key is not how to avoid problems, but how we face them, how we respond. Once faced with uncertainty or fear, "train through it." Set a clear intention; declare a set of behaviors in alignment with what you really want to have happen or become manifest. Listen to what the universe sends you back in response. Then detach and allow things to unfold or adjust your intention, and declare a different set of behaviors. Relish in the journey of life in the natural. The only reason that something "is" or "feels" bad "is because" we were taught that it should. (See my book, Its None Of My Business What You Think Of Me.) This is only our ego asserting itself. Don't buy into that if at all possible. You are spirit first, mind and body second. With that in mind, we are already immortal. (So, check that off your list.) It also means that changing one's perception changes the reality of any given life situation. Every life situation is a good one. Life without our bodies (portal into this universe) is pretty boring. No sight, no hearing, and no music to dance to. The life situations that we experience are just that, music to dance to. Be the intentional painter, artist; each day you add yet another color, another shade to the portrait called your life.
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I am sure that we can be centered and move forwards at the same time, as you say.
All the best, Peter!
Greetings!
We can, in fact, be the artists of our own portraits, but we are always limiting ourselves...We are our own obstacles.
We have to change our perceptions of a situation in order to change the situation itself and be able to face it positively. You always speak the truth :) Peter!
One of your best articles!
Without sight and hearing the music plays on, and one may dance to it without limbs.
There is prosody and rhythm that no tongue can utter.
It is nectar -- amrita in Sanskrit.
I am very afraid of changes and uncertainty, but detaching and allowing things to flow and unfold brings positive opportunities that we must have otherwise not experience if we don't "let go" of our fears.
Always a pleasure to read your articles,
all the best!
As Peter says, relabel the situation and the problem will become an opportunity.
All problems are good problems to have if we learn to approach them differently.
Detaching is certainly not easy, but when we detach we allow new things to come into our lives, and therefore new opportunities to grow. To change is a matter of choice, and we have the capability to embrace that choice and improve the quality of our lives!
We certainly condition ourselves, and sometimes the result is failure in accomplishing what we intend. This reminds me of the teachings of your book: the Point of Power. This goes back to your idea of being afraid of the challenges that the unknown brings. It's the fear that we face when we encounter something uncertain that doesn't really let us move forwards.
Changing our perception changes our reality, indeed! It's important to learn how to detach and create another pathway, a new one and uncertain.
Great article and very well thought!
Imagine that a $1 coin you've lost in your garden six months earlier had magically become
a stalk heaving under the weight of 50 shining, brand new $1 coins...
That's what happened some 8000 years ago with the invention of Agriculture - the founder of
of Civilizations.
Now, disregarding the Mechanized Agriculture of the last 150 years cast your mind back over
the preceeding millennia - for its most part, Agriculture had depended on a hard, dawn to dusk
back-breaking labor...
What social attitudes had historically emerged in the face of this new, arduous phenomenon?
1. "You do the hard work - we can't because we're better born" said the Aristocracy.
2. "You do the hard work - we can't because we represent God, the giver of the Afterlife" said
the Religions.
In this context, I propose a third social group - the Artists.
Admittedly, unlike Aristocracy and Religion, the Artists never tortured people for not listening
to their songs, or burn them at a stake for disliking their paintings or poems... That's a plus.
However, whenever I look at Art, I sense behind the same instinctive attitude; "You do the hard
work - I can't because I'm an Artist"
Or to paraphrase Keats; "Negative attitude to hard physical work is the key ingredient of Art"
Hope you're making a killing on Kindle.
Best Regards
Mark
Negative capability allows an individual to step around pre-programed patterns that are developed via our DNA and our domestication and respond to a life situation "in the present" with right action vs. a predetermined response. Being lazy can be a learned behavior that keeps us humans from achieving and experiencing complex and interesting life situations that are are more easily accessed with the right behaviors. Negative capability can allow us to side step being "too lazy" to respond with right action and actually have our desires become manifest.
Best, Peter
The only stars I can see upon a broad sky of Life is MIMICRY - Evolution had programmed us into repeating the actions of those whom we already perceive
as having been successful.
Actually, this applies as much to say, a crow that mimics another crow's way
of opening a bottle of milk as it does to people who aim to mimic the success
of widely acclaimed, thriving Artists of any discipline.
Still, to me Art remains an "I want to be an Artist" INTENT, not "I am a Artist"
OUTCOME. Why?
The "I am an Artist" OUTCOME is yet to be backed by genuine TALENT and
that has historically proven to be the rarest of human attributes.
Not the end of the world - the ambitious but talentless aspirants have another
shot at fame, for they can still mimic the BEHAVIOUR of their talented peers
and so it goes...Ad nausem!
The end result? In about 99% of cases INTENT masquerades as OUTCOME.
Regards
Mark
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Keats was awfully clever and I do not know much about what he said but I thought ''negative capability'' was being able to approach a (new?) situation without preconception. The abandonment of preconception is freeing oneself from the enslavement of intellectual tradition (in his case the Enlightenment) and entering into a mode which is experiential to the core (here comes Romanticism).
Thus ''positive capability'' is being equipped with a worldview which does the work for you by providing tools of interpretation. With ''negative capability'' you experience. You do not allow the imposition of the learned way determine the shaping of the experience.