6. Neither Blue Nor Purple

The subject wants to hide. You want to say something without me knowing that it came from you. You want me to believe you are not here, that the words you speak have a meaning or value beyond what they have for you or me.

You obscure your “I” by speaking in a voice that pretends to come from nowhere. “The sky is blue,” you say. There is no “I” here. Your sentence claims to report an observation about the world with no reference to an observer. Perhaps you want me to believe the claim is true in some incontrovertible way, as though it were an objective fact. Really what you’re telling me is that the sky appears blue to you, and so the truth of your claim depends entirely on the observer, on the subject who is hidden, on you.

5. A Sense Of Precarity

A work of art is finished when the artist says it is finished. Whether the work is then displayed or published or just left in a drawer, the artist will not change it from that point on. When shown, an artwork usually does not come with an announcement or declaration that it is complete. The audience assumes the work must be complete because it is on display.

What if someone were to show a work that was purposely unfinished? The incompleteness would become part of the work. People would view it with the expectation that it might be revised in the future. What if someone went even further and declared that nothing they create is ever finished, that anything shown could change at any moment? The audience might then feel a sense of precarity about the work they are viewing. They might want to take photos or videos of it, to freeze it in time, to capture the different stages of its existence. But insofar as these secondary media are not the artwork itself, they will never fully replicate it.

4. To Hear Only The Silence

The forest at dusk. The blue-green air envelops me in a bright chill. The scent of foliage, soil, and rain and the taste of life itself. With each breath, I fill myself with more life. The cold air revives and invigorates parts of me that have not felt the touch of life in so long. It reminds me that my body is alive, all of it, the parts and the whole. I find myself in possession of an excess of energy beyond any need. I look up and notice the treetops have turned from green to a muddy orange. What is left of the sunlight cannot reach me — the trees gather up what little remains. With each step along the forest path, there is a muted crunch as the fibres bearing me give way. I am a substantial being — an animal with weight. Are there other animals here with me? If there are, I cannot hear them or see them. When I pause to listen, the silence is so profound that there is nothing of it my mind can grasp. How can any place be so quiet? The only source of noise is me, even when I try to be as still as the trees. I hear the sounds of my breath, of my living body. But the noise is also more than this. It comes from inside me. It is the ceaseless chatter of my mind. I do not just absorb the world around me, I also process, analyze, and evaluate it. I must abandon these compulsions. I must match my mind to this great silence. I must allow myself to be as free and clear as the forest. To see only the greens and browns, to hear only the silence, to be like wind through the leaves, a gust that comes and then goes.

3. One More Piece

I want to put everything together into a single, unified narrative.

I want reasons that make sense of all that has happened and will happen.

I want to understand how each piece relates to the others and to the whole.

I want to know the full story — the story that completely explains and justifies the world.

Despite these desires, I am always discovering new pieces that resist explanation, that refuse to fit into the story. I am continually forced to revise the story or to create an entirely new one. Even then, there are pieces I must leave out to maintain the story’s coherence. Pieces that lack justification or are propped up by flimsy or fraught reasons. Pieces that do not seem to fit anywhere. Pieces that resist the very idea that a unified story is possible.

2. Not To Turn Away

When I see suffering, I want to turn away. It is painful to watch another person suffer. It is doubly painful to watch suffering I feel I cannot do anything to eliminate or prevent. I want to help, but I cannot see what I must do. This is deeply uncomfortable, so perhaps it is no surprise that my inclination is to look away.

But this is a mistake. I cannot allow my own discomfort to distract me. It is by giving suffering my sustained attention that I gain the opportunity to understand it. This is not an easy task. It is not easy the first time, and it is not easy the hundredth time. I need not only to see but also to ask questions. I must investigate what is happening and why it is happening, but also what I am doing and what I could be doing. All of this is difficult, taxing, tiring.

1. The Greatest Victory

The most important thing is not to give up. You have to keep going.

You have to keep observing, absorbing everything that happens, leaving nothing out. You have to keep asking questions and pushing your investigation of yourself and the world further, without end. You have to keep experimenting, attempting what has not been attempted, and going beyond whatever rules or beliefs you have accumulated. You have to keep going beyond everything.