Aiming for Balance in Emotions, Life and Art
Birth of Marasi / 2017 / 150 x160(h)
July 14th 2019
In a world that created human brains as an eternal enigma for ourselves, lies a paradox. We slowly get better at learning about the most developed organ on this planet, though unfortunately we might never reach to see the climax of all knowledge about it. What we know so far is that human emotions get in the way of clarity of mind and this phenomena is unstoppable as a result of the brain's evolution to function; not to differ physical pain from emotional pain for example. Uncontrollable emotions come and go in order to balance the situation at hand - to protect us from ourselves. Our brain releases a cocktail of chemicals according to which situations we face, from a threat to our safety to the will to nurture and take care along with anything in between. Our brain developed only to help us survive any outer- or inner challenges. These facts prove that we can only dream of what’s to come in the future and meanwhile, it’s probably best to search the truth and purpose within ourselves.
Meaning of life found in a balance of personal passions and love?
I personally see a complete balance within human life only occurring if we find both of the two types of fulfillments: passion within oneself and a soulmate type of love. In my little theory, I believe a person can consider themselves lucky finding or practicing one or the other. And the ultimate happiness is in finding both. I believe a true passion is not only a spare time hobby or a cause that we believe in. Passion is like the air that we breath, it’s difficult to live fully without it. And if we are forced (or unable otherwise) to practice our passion, we start to suffocate slowly. This suffocation would surface ultimately as bitterness toward the life we’ve lived so far, blaming others for our circumstances or as a fear to face the world as it is and refusing to understand others and their motives.
Love is always trickier, because it’s not guaranteed to ever exist in one's lifetime. Crossing paths with a soulmate love is rare. And the individual's acceptance that this miracle might never happen, makes it easier to come into terms that one can also thrive in finding the passion within - a passion which is so fulfilling that it just might be enough to make a person happy.
Avoiding to reveal personal dilemmas in this blog, would still like to share that it's much easier to make someone fall in love with you than it is to find the kind of love that meets all of your requirements. And some of us, won’t settle for any less. It can all be good without it, if we only have our personal passions and interests fulfilling us. This is not a complete balance but it can still be a great life. To understand our personal behavior and expectations in life and love deeper, we could also look at planets' positions in our solar system at the time of our birth. The Mayan society was possibly not off track in their studies.
This position of planets during the cycle of pregnancy and their placement in the moment we were born should at least theoretically affect us, since we are particles of this immediate universe of planet earth anyway. And if we look at multiple studies based on science and physics in the past, there have been many to have been proven right later on, mostly though in the field of astrology. There was and is an undeniable balance across the system.
Balance in arts and in emotional intelligence
Artists are a universal tribe who all blow into the same fire. This is why (despite of the variety of backgrounds) we understand each other and accept one another for who we are. Artists I believe, are the ultimate balance finders. We aim to balance emotions, colors, forms, movement, personal and political messages, universal topics and aesthetics. It’s many times about balance as we thrive to go really deep. Art is about understanding oneself as a human and mainly so. We are thinkers, digging below surface into our own motives and emotions. By doing so, we are able to see other aspects of life clearer. It’s not that we have the ability, but we surely have the will! Most people unfortunately don’t ever care to know their inner self and -drivers, which inevitably we all carry inside. And it’s not surprising, because getting to know oneself is one of the biggest challenges in life. The difference is whether we choose to learn and understand how we've evolved as individuals and as a society, whilst having some excitement on where we are going in life. Which passions to fulfill and which purpose to find, can be thrilling.
This curiosity that artists have toward emotional intelligence is unfortunately still majorly undervalued and not seen as part of our journey to becoming artists. We don’t teach it at primary schools along with art classes but we should at least look into it. Combining art education with emotional intelligence in early education would work wonders also in therapeutical sense, since art as a form of therapy has been proven efficient. Education, no matter how thorough, to me looks superficial, if there is no will for taking emotions and compassion into the picture. If there is any manifestation in this blog post, it’s that the field of arts accompanied with learning emotional intelligence can teach us early on what our life’s purpose can be - despite of our circumstances we’re born into. When things are off balance (which mostly they are in today’s world) there should be an unified urge to find calm waters and keep the boat from rocking. The more we have people using their emotional intellect to stabilize the boat instead of rocking it, the more likely we can sail further. Balance is the key.
Final note
Like in all fields of arts, we artists have more or less the same goal: making the world a little bit better by challenging ourselves and others around us while coping with the inner passion to express emotions. We’ve probably also made more mistakes than those who seek for stability and comfort, which not necessarily leads to an exciting life to live. And there’s a price to pay by always being inside of our comfort zones: we cannot move forward as a species and the imbalance will ultimately work against us.
