Making of a master-piece

Education to one should result in the knowing of the Self, so that when they expressthemselves they can be true to their Self. If that sounds far-fetched then there is no need to despair as you are not the only one feeling that way.

Knowing oneself and living true to the Self is an art and one has to strive hard to master, like any art. To understand art one has to develop a sense of aesthetics and to understand the art of living one has to understand the aesthetics of life and how to express them.

A true Artist is one who is totally aware and has developed the ability to extract and express their thought or idea through a medium they are familiar and comfortable, with all the aesthetics, having no external constraints, compulsions or expectations. The medium is irrelevant as long as the artist is comfortable with it. Such an expression is the Art produced by the Artist. Every instance of expression ofan Artist (the Art) will be unique and non-replicable. In that sense every piece of Art is a master-piece and needs no certification from anyone. In a similar vein it can be said that everyone’s life has a potential and reason to be a work of Art by becoming the expression of the Self with all its aspirations harmoniously blended with the world around.

We enjoy and feel so good about the expression of nature around us. The reason I believe we feel good about nature is because of our ability to appreciate the aesthetics of its unique expressions. Every human being is bestowed with a similar ability to express oneself aesthetically, but somewhere in the hustle and bustle of our pursuit with the material progress we have forgotten to understand the Self and express it. This process appears to be so simple and natural when it comes to everything else in nature except for us. I believe this is because we create constraints and set expectations with everything we do. The constraints and expectations could be self inflicted or by our environment, either way; according to our earlier definition for Art, any expression motivated by a prior expectation on theoutcome does not qualify to be Art.

Another aspect of expression and Art is related to the certainty of the outcome. The outcome should be a direct consequence of the expression of the thought or idea bythe Artist with complete uncertainty to make it unique and a master-piece by itself. Every outcome of an expression has a limitation owing to the limitations in the artists’ ability to express every aspect of the thought. A true Artist strives every time to excel his previous expression. If the outcome is pre-defined either by the artist or otherwise, it tends to conform to something that already exists. What already exists has limitations and every pure expression should overcome the earlier limitations and create a different standard.

We are too concerned about living life in a certain defined way; we fear uncertainty and its outcomes. The Artist may have a picture in the mind but the outcome of the

expression through a medium is completely uncertain. The Artist may be limited by their ability to use the medium while expressing. What is important though is the fact that the Artist made an honest attempt in creating something original; a master-piece.

Our modern education seems to have a knack of completely sapping out the individual’s ability to see and recognize the aspirations of the Self. With this fundamental ability suppressed most of our expressions lack originality. When we meet someone we are busy making our opinions of the person by mapping them to certain prototypes prevailing in society that we are familiar. The individual’s identityis stereotyped based on the occupation and environment they relate to – school, strata in society, demographics et al. It is time to rejuvenate our society so that we can have more people express their Self and its aspirations in harmony with the world having uncertain outcomes. This can be made possible only if we Deschool our society of its prevailing tendencies and awaken the Artist within each one.

The optimist in me says that it is possible for each one of us to be an Artist expressing the Self by living true to its aspirations and making our Life a master-piece.