Living in a Pretty Painting

 

What is a pretty painting but paint on a canvas? Brush strokes of colour that gives it more perceived value than what is here as simply a canvas and some paint. It is a pretty picture that we would like to see and like to experience, whereas the canvas underneath is just that – a canvas. It is blank, plain, we might call it boring, and maybe find it lacking.

On our life’s canvas, we also like to paint pictures, in words, in beliefs, ideas and perceptions. We do this mostly because the canvas of our lives and ourselves is either not so nice, or we perceive it as ‘not enough’, plain, lacking, boring. We want more, we want something different than what it actually is in fact, and we want something better than what we have.

And so, we plaster colours over our canvas, and we eventually believe the painting is what is really Here as us and as our lives. We fail to see through our own creation to the reality of ourselves, so when something challenges our painting, we become hostile and defensive: “I must DEFEND myself as my painting, my beliefs about who and how I am, and how my life is!”. We begin to live our lives protecting the paintings we have created in our minds. We avoid the situations or people that show us our raw canvas, and are drawn towards those that highlight the paintings we want to see.

We judge ourselves extensively, we criticize ourselves, compare ourselves to others, and then seek out people that stand as those points for us: that of self-acceptance, those we can manipulate, the people that make us ‘feel better’ so we can keep pretending everything is alright, that we still live in a ‘pretty picture’. Or we think we are great, something special, superior to what we are, and will avoid and fight people that point out our shortcomings or challenge our perceived authority.

Time and time again, reality will show us what is really Here as our canvas. We will even go into anxiety, fearing the next exposure, walking through Life on eggshells so as not to disrupt our painting. We scurry around like frantic artists, touching up the chips and cracks, those fissures in the paint where reality breaks through.  

What if we took this concept of painting our canvas, which is essentially self-creation, and actually looked at what is Here instead of covering up what is Here? If you are insecure, for example, instead of covering up the uncomfortable experience through seeking out security and validation, or hiding and avoidance and preferring instead a ‘pretty picture’, why not really look into that insecurity? Investigate it, look at the ‘raw canvas’ of what is really here as you, find out where did it come from, where did it start, and how can I build myself into confidence instead?

Now you are working with reality. Now your brush strokes become strokes of self-expression, they become real, and your painting is no longer a fraud or a front, but a living expression walking the earth. Walking the earth in such a way where you are truly working with your REAL Self as what is here. Your fixes and touch-ups are actual behavioural corrections that benefit you, where the outflow of your changes creates both yourself and your world as something better than it was – something that has meaning, purpose, honour, respect and regard for yourself in full awareness, and so towards others as you.

Now you can start to look beyond your ‘painting’ because it has become real, and requires less maintenance and touch ups. Now you live in Real Time, and your small world of fear and anxiety of exposure becomes more vast. All the energy it took to keep up the ‘pretty picture’ is now free to focus on more important issues: Now we can start looking at the painting we have super-imposed over all of reality, and start bursting the bigger bubbles and facing that instead. Now we can start working with the earth.

“and through that fissure where you left us, reality broke through, green of real green, real sunshine, real forests” – Rainer Maria Rilke 'Death Experienced'

Let us not wait for reality to burst our bubbles for us through consequence, but instead act in prevention. We can have a look now at Who We Really Are, or we can accept and allow Who We Really Are to become diminished and face that later, in sadness, sorrow and regret, only when we are forced to look, because the 'pretty picture' can only hold so long. Reality stands; pictures fade. Stand with and as Reality, don't fade away to nothing over time.