Much Ado about Doing

If, like me, you’re a fan of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, you’ll be familiar with the following exchange between the two principle characters, Holly Golightly and Paul Varjak;

Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
Paul: Sure.
Holly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

Tiffany’s is Holly’s antidote to the “mean reds”. Fortunately for me (and for my bank balance!) I have found my own antidote which is much closer to hand and, in my opinion, holds far more sparkle than a whole room full of platinum and diamonds. For when I get the “mean reds”, or even “the blues”, I always have the urge to rush out and head for the greens, the browns, the ochre. When that feeling of claustrophobic fear strikes, my instinct is to run to space – to the ‘great outdoors’. A wood, a park, the sea. Somewhere I can feel the edges of myself, the limits of me, paling in my insignificance into the limitless world of nature.

But what is it I find there? Quiet? Serenity? A sense that “nothing very bad could happen to you there”? Yes. Perhaps. Maybe all these things. But more than this, what I encounter in the quiet space of nature is Being.

We all spend so much time 'doing' in our lives that the question of 'Being' and what this means often drops out the bottom of our existence.

Have you ever walked around a supermarket, piling it high with your weekly shop, only to get to the checkout to find that the small item you placed in the trolley at the beginning of the shop has fallen out the bottom? More often than not it is an item you purposely went shopping for, with everything else just impulse buys and unnecessary luxuries. This is what happens with Being I think – it falls out the bottom of our trolley of existence.

Sometimes I think it happens just like this – a single occurrence resulting from our being distracted by other things or piling our trolley too high. Other times it’s a more gradual, insidious draining away – like sugar draining from a hole in the bottom of a packet; you don’t notice until suddenly the hole becomes so large and fragile that everything comes gushing out.

“What is it you do?” - Isn’t this a question we’re all familiar with at parties, gatherings and social functions where we are meeting strangers for the first time?

“What did you do today?” – A question asked by mothers to children, wives to husbands, friends to one another.

When do we ever ask, “How did you ‘be’ today?”. And no, it isn’t just a question of grammar that prevents us from asking this question.

I often don’t know how to answer that question of “What do you do?”. I often don’t really know what it was I ‘did’ on any given day either. It’s all too easy to lose our sense of what it is we’ve ‘done’, should be ‘doing’ or what it is we’re even good at ‘doing’. And there are times in our lives where that painful presence of an absence of ‘doing’ feels suffocatingly close. Like tinnitus in your ear, its shrill noise rings in its persistence and deafens us to the sound of our Being.

So on days where I’m struck by the “mean reds” I run to the greens of nature. For in nature you find no ‘doing’ but only ‘Being’. The concept of ‘doing’ makes no sense out in nature, for ‘doing’ implies purpose and what purpose does nature have other than to be?

Does a tree ever ask itself what it should be doing today? Do birds ever remark upon one another’s birdsong and reflect upon whether they could be doing a better job? Does a gentle breeze ever agonise over what direction it ought to blow in today? No. Being need not make any reference to purpose, to any concept of what needs to be done. Being just is. Its this sense of ‘is-ness’ that I feel most clearly when I take myself out into nature.

The other day, feeling just a little ‘blue’, I decided to take myself off for a walk. I headed to Nymans Garden, a National Trust property in West Sussex, and found myself following the Bluebell trail. It was a cold but sunny March day. I sat upon a pile of trees - cut down for making a pathway it seemed. I felt my skin prickle with cold and a warm red glow of winter sun on my cheeks. I heard a woodpecker busy at work and watched a tiny rabbit scampering through a blanket of crisp golden leaves. I felt a shivery breeze through my hair and heard the gentle bubbling of water over rock in a nearby stream.

Had you asked me on that afternoon, “What did you do today?”, I probably would have said “Not a lot” and at once have felt a definite absence of purpose, a lack of any sense of achievement. But had you asked me, “How were you today? What did you feel?”, then my answer would have been altogether different:

I felt something of the world today.
I felt my heart beating.
I felt alive and real, and it felt good.

When our time is up and we exist to be, I wonder what will matter more – what we did, what we achieved or whether we lived as ourselves, in the fullness of our Being. Will it matter most whether we taught ourselves how to 'do' or whether we really learnt how 'to be'?

To be or to do – now that is the question. I know my answer, the question is, do you?

It's all in the 'I''s

A single glance can say sometimes express more than words could ever say.

I am sure there have been times for all of us when we have looked at someone – our partner, a friend, a stranger even – and needed no language to tell us what they are thinking. A furtive glance, a piercing gaze, a stony silent stare – it is a beautiful truth about being human that our eyes have such a huge expressive capacity, such a wonderful ability to reflect outwardly what we are feeling in our hearts, and sometimes, such a worrying potential to 'give the game away' with thoughts we would rather keep hidden. But then, if, as they say, the eyes are the window to the soul, where does this leave our mouths? What is it we reveal about ourselves when we open it to speak? What do we tell of ourselves by the words we use, the intonation, the imagery we conjure up? And what has more value, what carries more weight – our words or our looks?

A very good and wise friend of mine (whose opinions I have great respect for) seeing that I had started writing this blog expressed some concern about the fact that I had not chosen to write under another name. “Writing can really expose you”, they warned me – a warning which was taken on board with the utmost seriousness. Would I not be best to protect my anonymity? Should I not use a pseudonym and thereby not reveal too much about myself? Words, he wrote, can be “alarmingly unambiguous”, perhaps in a way that a look or an image, are not.

This friend of mine – Neil Moore – is an artist I greatly admire, and for whom I have worked as a model since I was a slightly un-ironed student back in 2001. (Incidentally, I am glad to say I am now always very well 'pressed'!). Neil is a remarkable painter and I have always felt incredibly privileged to model for him and be part of his creative process. And so, when he wrote to me with his comments on my blog his words carried real weight for me, and rang in my head so loudly that I thought – this must be worth writing about.

For it is an interesting thought, this concept of anonymity. For Neil (I believe I am correct in saying) does not seek to reveal himself though his painting, but rather something about the human condition. And, arguably I think, I would probably agree that this is precisely what he does achieve in his work. Looking at Neil’s work always gives me the sense of being put in touch with something about being alive, being human, existing in this world and relating to other beings. It isn’t always a comfortable feeling confronting his work, as his paintings often deal with difficult imagery, with complex emotions & challenging interactions between people – but this is all part of being real is it not, isn’t this real life? And, if you spend any time looking at his work you are, certainly, sure to get a sense of Neil’s style, his technique, perhaps even his philosophy. But – and here’s the question - is this the same as getting a sense of him? Does Neil, the artist, the man, the human, reveal himself through his work, or does the inherent ambiguity of the work he produces protect him in a garb of anonymity? I can only encourage you to have a look at his work at www.neilmoore.co.uk and see what you think for yourself – perhaps you’ll come to your own conclusions about Neil, perhaps not, but I have no doubt you’ll be moved in some way.

An interesting concept too – anonymity – for who is to say this is something we should aspire to? Should we want to protect our anonymity, as we would hold close to us a treasured heirloom? Or should we seek to throw off the shackles of 'being anonymous' like clothes we have become encumbered by or outgrown? Celebrities often bemoan the intrusion upon their private lives by the media, the constant prying eye of the press which snoops upon them in their quiet moments, their loss of their anonymity. But do they not also revel perhaps in a feeling that people 'know their name', that they are known for their “art”, that their talents have carved out a presence for themselves in the world that is felt by other beings?

Perhaps it is not so strange that Neil would raise this issue of anonymity regarding my blog, as maybe that’s precisely the crux of the matter. People often talk of 'making a name for themselves'. Is that what I am trying to do here by writing my heart out and sharing my attempts at philosophical 'musings'? Am I, indeed, 'baring my soul' by putting down on paper (or computer screen) my innermost thoughts? And are my words, as Neil suggests, “alarmingly unambiguous” in what they reveal about the workings of my mind, or rather something I am putting 'out there' deliberately to be interpreted, taken ambiguously, and potentially misunderstood?

Once again, I am full of questions yet rather lacking when it comes to definitive answers. All I can say is this – it feels damn good to be writing. And if writing as I do is the equivalent of running down a crowded high street stark blooming naked, baring all and leaving nothing to the imagination then hand me my running shoes, I’m off for a jog – I bet its nothing you’ve not seen before anyway.


* The image used is Custody of the Eyes by Neil Moore, www.neilmoore.co.uk

A picture tells a thousand words....

Art and life. Being and becoming. Purpose and potential. Love. Love. Oh, and Love. These are things I think about a lot. Nay, agonise over a lot. I have all these thoughts which whirr and reverberate around my brain, keeping me up at night till the wee hours and stopping me from being useful - a paralysis of rumination, immobilized by meditation, a terrified rabbit in the blinding headlights of thought, blah blah blah.... In any case, I thought perhaps they’re best down on paper. Virtual paper maybe, but “out there” nonetheless.

Get the thoughts out, I've been told. Write a letter to yourself or to someone you’re angry or upset with. Tear it up. Burn it. Feed it to the puppy (remarkably satisfying that one, do try...). Orrrrrr, post it on a blog for people to scorn over? OK, so I've never been told me to do that, and indeed whether anyone else wants to read these thoughts is a $64million question. Should I share my lunacy and expect people to delight in and be amused by my self-indulgent ramblings? Will readers (if I have any!) really glean any sense or meaning from a random collection of my thoughts, poems and reflections upon other peoples thoughts, poems and reflections? And will it somehow lead to me making my own $64million? Hmmmm, I not sure I want to know the answers just yet – it’s a very fragile ego I have, and not one that takes too kindly to criticism or rejection.

Then again, plenty of philosophers were a bit loony, and we make whole undergrad and PhD degrees out of their writings – even the nonsensical stuff. Goodness, I wrote about a lot of nonsense for four years at University and I got a 1st Class degree and a Masters with distinction out of it, so who says my moments of insanity can’t make for some good bedtime reading? (Incidentally, my MA dissertation probably would make for extremely effective bedtime reading – fellow insomniacs, do feel free to apply within. I’d be happy to supply a copy if you’re all done with counting sheep, or horses, or anything else which might conceivably jump hedges).

But, there’s a fine line between genius and madness, isn’t that what they say? Maybe. I’ve always wondered where that line is and whether we often mistake “genius” for things which are, in fact, just complete bonkers. (Look at the Turner Prize for example.... but more on that another day). In any case, as long as I stay on the right side of madness and away from genius, I reckon I’ll be okay – and probably you too if you’re reading this.

So, what’s the inspiration for the blog? What was it, so to speak, that gave me that final shove as I stood, tentatively, shivering in my swimming togs, peering down from the great diving board of life (oh lordy lord, scraping the barrel of bad metaphors!) into the cold water below and a potential non-career as a writer of, well, stuff? Well, in this case it was a photographer called Jeremy Lawrence (his website is http://www.futtfuttfuttphotography.com by the way – go check it out –after you’ve finished reading this of course.....)

Jeremy is an awesome, fantastic and just brilliant photographer I met whilst dancing at the Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden. (And talking of dancing, I’m sure there’s plenty of philosophizing to be done over that in time... for another day perhaps). Jeremy took the photo here of me one year in Herrang in a rather makeshift studio – something you wouldn’t tell from the final shot. And it got me thinking. Surprisingly – for me.

It got me thinking about that whole thing about pictures and words, and whether one has more value than the other. A quick skip, hop and a click of the mouse over to Wikipedia and I located the quote I was after.

Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours.

Or, for those of us who aint so fluent in the old parlez francais , comme moi, “A good sketch is better than a long speech”. Napoleon supposedly and often misquoted as “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Is a picture really worth a thousand words, and if so, what does Jeremy’s photo of me say? What does it say of me, of my life? What does it say, if anything, about anyone’s life? If Jeremy’s photo is a good substitute for my – or anyone else’s - ‘long speech’, what would that speech be about? How does it begin, and will there be a profound or amusing punch line at the end?

Questions, questions, questions. And herein, through the power of “the blog”, starts the process of answering....which if you’re an ex-Philosophy student like me, you’ll know really just means asking more questions and coming up with definitions..... which you then have to define, and interrogate..... until your brain starts frying and there’s no relief other than a short, sharp caffeine hit and two whole packets of chocolate hobnobs.

Hmmmm...

Coffee & biccies anyone?....