Paradoxes

In this bloutcher (where Art, Life Change and Leadership intersect)

• Paradoxes
• The Coach's Studio; Where OutRaGEouSLY Creative Coaching Happens

Paradoxes

The dictionary defines paradox as a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.

I have spoken before about being both lost and found at the same time. A paradox? When I am doing my art I am lost because I have a sense that I do not know what I am doing or where I am going. I push myself beyond where I have been and so I have no compass. Yet I am found because I know that this is the journey I am meant to be on.

But there are many more paradoxes in my life.

I seek coherence and practice disruption. That is the nature of creating art. In so far as art is language, it is also story, narrative. Perhaps in a very different language than we are familiar with, but language nonetheless. So we must always seek new forms of language that disrupt and reinterpret old language. Living in this paradox is also in the nature of growing as a human being. We grow more whole by disrupting our comfortable but incomplete selves.

In the process of creating art I both believe and am permeated by self doubt. I believe in what I am doing but am invaded by self doubt in my ability to pull it off. I don't think this is confined to art.

And so I succeed and fail at the same time. I try, fall short (fail), try again, and again, and again until I realize a small redemptive success. At least in my eyes. I believe success and failure are the ying and yang of creativity.

Sometimes I create by doing nothing. I daydream. I sit and wonder and stare, hands folded on my lap. I am very still. I am doing nothing. And ideas seep in. A pathway opens up. Imagination begins to play. It is all a wonder and magic. There I am doing nothing and creating at the same time.

I honor my antecedents by breaking with them. I study the work of the great masters. I am captivated, mesmerized, seduced by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velasquez, Goya, Soutine, Kollwitz, de Kooning. I want to be able to do what they do. Of course, it is hopeless. I know I can't. I am humbled by their work. I breathe it in. And yet...something different comes out of me.

• So how about you? Where does paradox show up in your life? What form does it take? Think of at least one paradox in your life.

• Then let me know. Shoot me an email with your thoughts.

• Then we can think about why paradox is important in our lives and what role it plays and possibly how paradox sparks creativity, growth and wonder.

The Coach's Studio; Where Outrageously Creative Coaching Happens

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