Painting with Meaning

†††Fragments from imaginary dialogues

“My medium of expression is Meaning, applied to the Art of (Playful) Living. And a large part of my work revolves around creating beautiful mental representations.”

“So it has an aesthetic component?”†

“Everything I do has an aesthetic component.“

“What do you mean by mental representations?”

“It has to do with the beautiful integration of ideas in your mental world.
What do they look like, what do they feel like in your subjective reality?

The richer, the more vivid the representation, the more beautiful the result, and the more powerful the motivational force behind it.“

“Can you give an example?”

“Take meditation for instance. Why do it?

One may say ‘because it’s good for you.’ Well, yes, it is, but this is a very meager representation.

But if you think of it as ‘mental-training‘, you’ve integrated it in a larger system of meaning.

For instance, for me, one of my guiding stars is the idea of Self-Mastery, by which I mean Mental/Physical/Emotional-Mastery (among other things). So every meditation session is a little step towards that end.

If you also think of it as ‘self-care‘, you’ve integrated it into another system of meaning.

Thus every meditation session becomes a profound act of renewal and connecting with yourself. A beautiful idea which I know from Alexandra Johnson is thinking of it as ‘coming home to yourself’.

The more systems of meaning you integrate it in, the more vivid and powerful the representation.“

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