The Ant and the Elephant
Journal Entry: Tuesday, January 16, 2024
There is a saying that I came up with for myself years ago that I have been thinking about recently.
“Our conscious, everyday self, in relation to the great depth of our being, can be compared to an ant standing on the head of an elephant thinking it is the taller of the two.”
So, I am going to write about that a little bit.
As I developed as an artist at a certain point I started bumping up against my own limited skills, thought process, ideas and petty aspirations, not to mention poor discipline, limited breadth of vision and knowledge, etc. The world and everything in it, taken as a whole, is much bigger than me and I can’t take it all in. Still, one has the feeling as an artist that they must figure out how to dominate their situation. One feels the need to develop some sense of having heroic qualities, bravado and swagger at least to oneself while in the studio. Artists need to be able to wake up in the morning ready to take on the world through their work and live the dream.
But then, after many hours and days, or weeks and years of doing that it becomes apparent that the little you, the ego, the persona drinking a cup of coffee, mixing a color, writing in a journal is just a small, delicate, fragile critter. Some days on top, sometimes crushed, demoralized or frustrated, sometimes plagued by internal chatter or overwhelmed by inspiration, or feeling as dull as dried out bark on a scraggly tree in the desert. These are the ups and down of our smallness.
But some artists, hopefully most, come to realize that their itty bitty self is like an ant standing on the head of an elephant thinking it is the taller of the two. There is a discovery at some point that below us there is a much larger part of our self that is noticed by our intuition and if we can trust it and learn to work with it this larger hidden being will take over when we work and our little self, in a way disappears. We become absorbed in our work and seem to disappear as our deeper, bigger being takes over and we loose our sense of time and even our sense of self.
When we emerge from this creative state we have the feeling that someone else did the work and made the decisions, decisions we don’t feel we could have made on our own as our little everyday self. Some form of deeper genius came to the front and took care of it.
A lot of artists call this being in the flow, in the groove, in the zone. When you get into this state you can work for hours without looking up, not notice any aches or pains, forget to eat, be in a state of self-abandon, detached from a desire of results, you are highly alert and work knowing exactly what to do and when to do it. Sometimes you just slip into this state, sometimes you just can’t seem to get into it. The elephant has stopped walking for the moment. One step for the elephant is ten thousand steps for the ant. So, our little self has to learn patience and learn how to meld into the mind of the elephant. The elephant doesn’t even know you are there.
https://www.betterup.com/blog/flow-state
some related articles
https://touchonian.substack.com/p/intellect-and-intuition
https://touchonian.substack.com/p/quiet-mind-clear-heart
https://touchonian.substack.com/p/creative-selflessness
https://touchonian.substack.com/p/intend-to-be-quiet
TAKE A MOMENT: Listen to all the sounds around you right now.
"Some days on top, sometimes crushed, demoralized or frustrated, sometimes plagued by internal chatter or overwhelmed by inspiration, or feeling as dull as dried out bark on a scraggly tree in the desert. These are the ups and down of our smallness."
Excellent, thought-provoking writing. Many thanks for sharing.