Have you ever felt this way? It is as if time has ceased to act as a barrier to the barrage of memories, thoughts, and moments that flood your mind. Perhaps it’s so paralysing, you don’t know what decision to make next; perhaps you’re so saturated by anxiety that the film between what is real and what is imagined has been eroded almost completely. With each scene that unfolds, before the previous one has even come to an end, it can feel impossible to escape.
An uncomfortable truth is that no matter which staircase you decide to go down, you have chosen this route. You will always end up in the same place: you can’t outthink over-thinking by thinking. Escher captures this essence in his etching, the aptly named, Relativity, from M.C. Escher: Reality and Illusion.
Why apt? Thinking can only offer us a reality that is defined in relation to what it is possible to think, in relation to thoughts we’ve already had. When we think, each thought is attached to what we already know the world to be – be it the dinner with the family, the storming off to our room in an argument with a lover, the carrying a heavy shopping bag up the stairs, or peering down over the balustrade, craning to hear what your parents are arguing about. Each of these events are things we already know; to be free of them we must be free of our current way of seeing the world. The solution cannot, at least at first, be found in thought.
The reality Escher creates for us, reminds us that with great thinking comes great responsibility. We are the architects of each step in our future. But by using thought alone, we become walled-in by using our reality to climb out of our reality. And, the dynamism of your thinking, nor your thinking prowess, will be able to free you – by using thinking alone, we build a surreal prison made from our uniquely subjective experience of the world.
If looking at this work reminds you, even in part, of your mind, then that’s normal; but it’s also serves to remind you of your agency in creating this reality. To create a future we want, we must rise above thinking and become attuned with what is before the layers of thought begin to stifle your agency.
So, meditate, eat something delicious, read, dance, sing, breathe – and feel. Once you’re free from these mind-forged manacles (William Blake was also attuned with this aspect of being human), you will be far better placed to access thought that can help blueprint, rather than obscure, each step towards your future. We are the architects of our own experience – look again in the top left – the stairs lead right outside. Should you accept that your thoughts do not have to be your reality, you can choose how to navigate through this waking dreamscape, you can walk right out into the open air of possibility; give yourself enough quiet to observe where to go, for it’s been there the whole time.
ART HEALERS 