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Beyond sculptures and symphonies,
beyond great works and masterpieces,
is the greater, finer art of creating a conscious life.
Genius appears everywhere, but never so magnificently
as a life well lived.
— Karla McLaren
This is the first appearance in the book “The Language of Emotions” by Karla McLaren…
It was recommended to me by a friend and shaman recently. I’ve been working to address, resolve, and heal underlying anger, and this recommendation came to help get to the root of anger and put the vital life force which anger unlocks into proper use—establishing and enforcing boundaries—rather than childish outbursts of frustration.
Today, however, we’re not here to talk about the book. We’re here to riff linguistic jazz on this quote.
It lit up my heart like an angel’s song, harkening to a cardinal truth that’s been out of awareness, but never forgotten. It’s something I say over and over again, in person, in my writing, and in my head:
Your life is your masterpiece.
Your life is a living symphony, a majestic improvisation playing out over decades.
Any great work that you do, any amazing moments of success, are but singular notes played in the melody of your existence. Every act is a brush stroke on the canvas of consciousness.
The person you are now, held in dynamic but harmonious tension with the person you are becoming, creates the taut strings of a violin – the tension between being and becoming lays the necessary foundation for genius to emerge, for concertos to be written, and for the Art of Living to unfold.
Music is played for its own sake. Just as games are played for their own sake. They are a whole and complete undertaking, done for no reason other than themselves.
You’re not trying to ‘get anywhere’ or ‘accomplish anything’ with music. Music is the point of music. This is true of all Art.
Life, like Art, is done for no other reason than itself.
This opens an invitation and a possibility: how can you make your life your masterpiece?
How can you make this a conscious, participatory process? Stepping fully into your role as conductor, director, and savant.
This inquiry beckons for comprehensive self-awareness and invites the opportunity for unfiltered self-expression.
Everything about you becomes part of your organic excellence. The tonality of your voice. Your posture. The clothes you wear. The company you keep. The way you walk on the Earth. How you spend your time. Your internal dialogue. Your material possessions.
Every aspect of your life takes its seat in the orchestra of your existence, contributing its singular but essential sound to the ongoing musicality of your experience.
Reading this quote sparked a deeper level of insight regarding the mild but persistent resistance I feel when listening or interacting with the ‘hyper-optimized, efficiency-over-everything’ archetype.
The resistance is: what do you mean by optimizing art? What is the value of efficiency in a masterpiece?
Like Alan Watts used to astutely point out… if you made a symphony more efficient, it would be reduced down to one great BANG.
I succumbed to this myself for a long time. For several years I wore solely black clothing. Not necessarily (though not completely!) due solely to a neo-Gothic aesthetic inspiration, but rather an inspiration of efficiency. Black always works. It’s clean, it’s clear, it can be dressed up or dressed down. It was efficient.
But it was bland. Like a song with only one long drawn-out tone.
It lacked variation, arpeggiation, creativity, variety, spice, style, pizazz, or whatever you want to call it.
It lacked Soul.
Beware the psychological disposition that views you as a machine to be optimized rather than a work of art to be expressed and experienced. The macabre levels of neuroses, depression, and psychopathy present in modern culture are symptomatic indicators of the dangers lurking within the worldview of “human as machine”.
Conversely, the worldview of Life as Art is healing.
First and foremost: you can’t do Art wrong. There are no mistakes in Art. Too many people are burdened with the psychological elephant of feeling like they are somehow living their lives incorrectly. As if there is an operating system for Being Human they didn’t receive. Notice our friend the ‘human-as-machine’ worldview here again!
There are no mistakes in Art. Art is the expression of the Artist. It is done for its own sake, to create and express Genius. This single starting point, that you cannot live your life incorrectly, is a fount of psycho-spiritual healing awaiting anyone willing to drink from its waters and invite a new ontological framing of reality to wash over them.
The second gift of the Life as Art worldview is that while it is true you cannot make a mistake in Art, you can become a better artist. You can cultivate skills that assist you in creating and expressing the artistic and creative genius inside of you.
Taken literally, you can become more proficient at an instrument. You can develop shading and blending and technical skills with painting. You can unlock new and more challenging postures and movements in dance.
The masterpiece of your Life is no different. You can develop a greater skill of being truly you. This is Self-Mastery. The refinement of the technique of expressing your authentic existence. This is becoming your own authority, removing blockages and psychological obstacles that cause you to bite your tongue or hesitate.
You are an organic, immaculate Masterpiece in the making. You are the Artist and the Art. The marble and sculptor. The composer and the song.
You are a living, breathing miracle.
You are a Genius, a Savant – and your birthright, and dare I say your responsibility within this lifetime, is to sing the song that only you are capable of singing. There is a masterpiece being written through you, by you, as you – and you are the only person who will ever exist in human history who can allow it to flourish, to be seen, and to be expressed.
While this may instill a feeling of pressure, I assure you there is none. Because you will be at your best when you are most fully and completely relaxed within yourself. When you are totally at home in yourself, unencumbered by recursive self-criticality and chronic analysis, fully present in the moment — your song flows effortlessly from you. It emanates from your Being. This is Flow.
The greatest opportunity we have as human beings is to join this unconscious process as conscious, co-creative participants in the miracle and masterpiece of our existence.
You are a Genius. You are an Artist. You are a Work of Art. You are Serious Play.
You are the Masterpiece.
If you are ready to ascend to your throne as a conscious, participatory co-creator of the masterpiece of your existence — join us in the HERO100.
6 daily disciplines. 100 days. Develop the skills, attitudes, experience, and wisdom needed to allow the miracle of your existence to flow freely through you.
Nice framing of some inspiring words. Our life is an infinite canvas upon which we can work the paint into a dazzling array of experiences.
The idea of your life as a masterpiece reminds me of the book 'The Path of Least Resistance' by composer Robert Fritz. He describes the value of tension, in music for example, and the desire for tension to resolve itself. He advocates the deliberate cultivation of a 'creative tension' in our lives by holding a vivid vision of where a work of art wants to go, so that the disparity between what we aspire for and where we are now creates an irresistible creative tension that is compelled to resolve itself. This applies to life and self-mastery just as well as art.
Great post.
Incredible piece of writing my friend. Deeply resonated and felt called out. I feel the strong desire to optimize the hell out of my life. It's that balance between seriousness and strategy with play and art. An opponent process worth sitting with. Thank you for your writing.