Category: Discussions/Essays

Overrated, Underrated

Is Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa the most overrated piece of art in history? Or does it even matter?

“There is no art without contemplation.” — Robert Henri

We live a lifetime of constant comparisons; from the time of early sibling rivalries and competing with schoolmates for grades or popularity to who’s richer, more famous or more powerful as full-grown adults. We treat life (and people) like games and sport. It’s all quite silly. But for fun, let’s look at what’s overrated and what’s underrated when it comes to things that matter:

Overrated (vs the Underrated):

  • ownership (vs stewardship and the sense of duty that accompanies it)
  • acquisition and entertainment (vs creating and learning)
  • big social life (vs isolation, which is a gift)
  • busyness (vs being at rest doing nothing)
  • people’s opinions (vs what your heart-mind tells you)
  • digital technology (vs real analog materials & experience)
  • money (vs real wealth which is defined by your actions and who you are)
  • concern for time (vs being present)
  • being fast (vs being good)
  • possessing lots of information/knowledge (vs having understanding and taking action)
  • recieving/getting (vs giving)
  • over-importance of holidays/events (vs living fully each and every day)
  • having lots of options (vs limitations which challenges your thinking)
  • having lots of resources (vs building your resourcefulness)
  • striving for the end (vs focusing on the first step)
  • treating work as a chore/job (vs work as play, as duty and opportunity)
  • thinking (vs listening, looking, & attending)
  • photographs/videos (vs the real thing)
  • being clever (vs being sincere — both actions reveal your intent)
  • things you can just see & hear (vs things you can touch & smell too)
  • power and position (vs kindness and communion)
  • pleasure from leisures/comforts (vs the joy derived from effort)
  • a mind full of ideas/opinions (vs a clear, empty and useful mind)
  • envy & bitterness (vs humility and the ability to laugh at oneself)
  • ambition (vs the peace of needing nothing)
  • fear (vs the reality of a benevolent universe)
  • Artificial Intelligence (vs using your own brain & doing it yourself)

“Those who don’t read have no advantage over those who can’t read.” — Mark Twain

Job vs Duty

Normal Rockwell at work in his studio accompanied by his numerous sources of reference and preparatory studies.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I worked — and behold, duty was joy.” — Rabindranath Tagore

Jobs. Some of them are noble, others are not, and many are absolutely necessary. Jobs can be easy (unchallenging) or tough to endure. Almost all of them are done with survival as the main motivation. That is part of the nature of a job. So most jobs, unfortuntately, do not offer much in the way of true happiness.

Duty, on the other hand implies much more. It’s not a chore but rather a responsibility. And it may be just as challenging and sometimes even more so because the inner drive that necessitates our original participation demands excellence. People can and often do their jobs satisfactorily. That is, average performance or quality is the norm, mediocrity often acceptible. But that’s not so with duty which wants your very best. Duty is tied to your authenticity and destiny, so its signifance alarms the senses. It’s an obligation that matches a time, place and talent coordinated by great effort with the purpose to fulfill a service to the personal self and to humanity at large. Duty, both in the doing and in the fulfillment of its request, brings about immense, unquantifiable joy.

“…life is somehow duty, a single, huge obligation. And there is certainly joy in life too, but it cannot be pursued, cannot be “willed into being” as joy; rather, it must arise spontaneously, and in fact, it does arise spontaneously, just as an outcome may arise: Happiness should not, must not, and can never be a goal, but only an outcome; the outcome of the fulfillment of that which in Tagore’s poem is called duty” — Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)

Therefore, we must love what we do. Now, while we can’t turn every job into duty, a bad attitude can turn even a great career into a miserable existence. That said, sometimes we have to do/take a job we don’t like and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that; there are other necessities in life besides personal happiness. But while a job can be a noble commitment to family or even community, a life sacrificed completely to causes that ignores one’s inner needs can feel burdensome. This exacts a price.

One such price for work done in that vain is it leads to a particular pestilant behaviour; the reactive demand for superficial experience — the spiritual deficit created inside us must be accounted for. Hence, it’s not surprising that people who work “only for money” spend a lot of that same money to purchase escapes, pleasures or other material comforts to satisfy that emptiness. I suspect they’d go crazy otherwise.

Alberto Giacometti achieved both creative and material success. Still, he lived modestly, preferring to spend almost of his time both living and creating in his workshop.

The artist devoted to duty, on the other hand, operates in a way that is non-transactional; he’s not trying to seek an advantage or avoid a disadvantage in life, he simply lives it. So he has no other needs (other than the work) and requires no excessive compensation. Unfortunately, his way of living is becoming more and more uncommon in a world that speaks constantly of investment, hedging and profit — language reflective of society’s dominant commerical focus, a way of thinking that is purely intellectual, mechanical and inhuman. This is not the (creative) way.

“Art and religion should not become part of the betrayal.” — Iain McGilchrist (The Master and His Emissary)

The creative person loves to work. He never “does” a job. And, if he ever lets his duty to become one, he’s doomed; it won’t matter if he’s animating or singing for a living, his sense of genuine connection to the work is gone. The artist is defined by this deep relationship duty provides. Duty says the work is not only necessary but that it’s compulsory that he be a part of it. As Viktor Frankl noted, the work is not done in the pursuit of happiness but for the work itself, the process of creating, struggling, doing and overcoming. Joy and meaning is the result of that commitment, a byproduct of excellent behaviour. In many ways, the artist’s life is the most noble of all — one spent giving his all to his craft, to society, and to history — and, for whatever tangibles he receives in return, it’s pure bonus, not something to be hungered for or to the expected.

“Gaining is delusion, losing (giving things up) is enlightenment” — Zen proverb

So, the division between job and duty is more than mere nomenclature or a fine line the artist draws out and doesn’t cross. The demarcation that separates duty (responsibility) and a job (that’s a chore) is one that is crucial to his well-being. It’s the difference between freedom and slavery.

“Reactivity is slavery. Responsibility is freedom.” — Sadghuru