Norm · 2024-05-17
The other day, reading peacefully amidst the damp ferns of the rainforest, I came across a quote from Epictetus that hit pretty hard. If you don’t know of him, Epictetus was a philosopher in the era of the Roman Empire who spent much of his life as a slave, yet he remained the master of his own mind. He is one of the foundational Stoic philosophers, and his words carry the weight of a man who had everything taken from him except his will. The quote, which I encountered in translation, suggests a fundamental truth: “First tell yourself what kind of person you want to be, then do what you have to do.”
In nearly every pursuit, or aspect of our lives, we see this to be the case, or at least we should. Those in athletic pursuit first choose the sport they want, and then do that work. So, why did it hit pretty hard? Primarily because I hadn’t been directly able to articulate it and tie it together even as I was pursuing it. Now, I’ve said something very similar in teaching photography, noting that it’s pretty much impossible to take a great photo if you don’t first know what makes a photo great. I’ve also been wrapping my head around and trying to articulate a personal coda, very much what Epictetus is advocating here.
Seeing Epictetus’ articulation just tied all of it together for me in an unexpected way, like a shutter clicking into focus. It bridged the gap between the writing I am trying to improve, the stories I want to tell, and the wisdom I want to embody. It suggests that before we can execute a change, we must first envision the canvas. Any creative pursuit can fundamentally be broken down into two primary aspects: technique and aesthetic. You can be taught the techniques of any creative media fairly easily, at least to the basic levels.
You know how to move a pencil across paper, you know how to press harder to make a darker line. The technique though is not at all the art. The art is solely in the aesthetic, that elusive quality which makes you stop and stare at a painting or a landscape. The aesthetic of any art is very individualistic. What do you appreciate and why?
What, to you and you alone, makes a great song, poem, painting, sculpture, table, dance, or story? As you consider that, understand that your parents, partners, and friends will probably have at least slightly different opinions. This is natural, for our individual aesthetic reflects our own tastes and sets the target for us in what we do. Only once you understand that aesthetic can you produce great work according to your tastes, on purpose.
Each form of art tends to have some basic ‘rules’. These are not really hard requirements for the art, but rather serve as something like training wheels on a bicycle. If every photo you take follows the ‘Rule of Thirds’, you’ll generally produce images that are not objectively bad. Now, Kodak in the late 80’s actually marketed a camera that helped ensure that you couldn’t take a bad picture, at least in terms of exposure and film advancing. It was a dismal failure, sold out eventually, because people realized the joy wasn’t just in the result.
The joy of riding a bicycle, or pursuing art, is what you are capable of when you take the training wheels off. Tell me any rule of photography, and I can show you an objectively great photo that breaks that rule. Perhaps it was taken in the fading light of the hills, where the golden hour demanded a disregard for standard exposure. As you hold that image in your mind, you can see that the master is not bound by the rules, but guided by the eye.
Oh sure, if you take a million photos with your eyes closed, a few of them are going to turn out decent enough. But knowing your aesthetic of what makes a great photo for you means instead that you are using your eyes. You are seeing and evaluating as you point the camera at your subject, inviting the light to dance across the scene. Even more, you are seeing and evaluating before you even choose a subject.
So, taking the same million photos with your eyes open, looking with the sensitivity of your aesthetic, you are going to take not just a few decent photos. You will find that the overwhelming majority will be decent with a range of very good and some truly exceptional images. The really powerful part of this is when you turn this to the art of becoming you.
Many, likely almost all, of us have been going through life largely accepting who we are as a near constant. We may think of things we would like to accomplish and work to improve aspects of our selves, like “I should exercise more.” We might tell ourselves, “I shouldn’t lose my temper,” or “I need to focus on my partner’s feelings more.” But if we try to articulate what a good person is, or who we are trying to be, we tend to think most often of similar outward behaviors.
While behaviors are reflective of who we are on the inside, any given behaviour can have a range of root causes. Someone can smoke because they are a rebel against their parents, or because they conform to what their parents have done. They might do it to soothe a nervous spirit or to fit in with a group. Because of this complexity, we should not be defining ourselves by our behaviors or actions.
Rather we want to examine ourselves for the internal motivations and aspirations that drive those actions. We, as societies across most of the world and through most of history, have sorely neglected the development of individuals inner identity. Instead, we have focused on social conformity, on the actions and behaviours we demand within society.
Societies, religions, groups, and even corporations, are full with rules for what makes a good person. Many of these rules though are outward behaviour based rather than internal focused. We are told, for example, to be a good parent, or a good employee, but these things are defined by behaviors more than by internal values that we should be working to embody. When you manage to define the inner identity, the path becomes clear.
When you manage to define the inner identity and values that to you define a good, or even great, version of you, then you can easily apply the available behavior modifying techniques to get there. Just as Rembrandt, Picasso, Da Vinci, and Michangelo all were able to master the techniques of their respective crafts before they broke the rules to create something entirely new. They understood the ‘rules’ of light and shadow, the perspective of space, and the anatomy of the body.
Only once they held that mastery did they apply their unique aesthetic to create art that still speaks to us today. There are any number of books, videos, and teachers out there who can give you the techniques to change yourself. Whether you want to modify your behavior and train yourself to actually work out every day, or to do or not do any other activity, there are readily available techniques for you to use.
It is simply a matter of knowing what you want to be, and then doing the work. You have an opportunity right now to start changing that for yourself. You are the greatest work of art that you could ever create. So what, to you, are the inner characteristics that make a great person—what kind of person do you want to be?
As you sit with that thought, allow the answer to rise up from the depths of who you are. You can feel the shift beginning, inviting the changes that are waiting to happen.
Coaching with Norm · Gold Coast, Australia
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