Author: James Chiang

Self Trust

Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises is a beautiful and mature film about love, dreams and living with self trust.

“Self trust — it’s a very hard thing to achieve, for me. To trust yourself. Because we don’t really do it, you know?” — Philip Guston, Painter

Oftentimes, we get so busy that we forget that we can choose.

But we can. We can choose to live with self trust or with continuous doubt and fear. I think it’s clear how a majority of people live, even if they might not realize this truth consciously. For, to live with self trust means, not so much in following established beliefs, but in refusing to accept living in a way that’s almost completely disassocciated from reality. It’s the plight of modernity to live in constant fear. If we can’t recognize our malaise, we will stay in it.

Consider this metaphor: God (the universe, or whatever the powers may be) has invited man to his/her/its home. He enters the abode and finds the surroundings filled with immeasurable abundance including a vast array of food, comforts and entertainment. There’s almost an endless supply of delicious concoctions enough to delight every taste and need, and all of it offered to him openly and perpetually. But despite all this, he’s discontent. Although he was at first delighted by the generosity of his host, he’s now grown accustomed to what’s been given and begins to demand more than what’s currently available. He wants more of everything; more variety, more comfort, more fun, more delicacies, more convenience and more security. And, as if that’s not enough, he gets bitter, hateful and even violent when it doesn’t arrive exactly when and in the way that he desires. He’s forgotten completely that he’s only a guest here. And in advancing his greedy selfish agenda, he seeks to exploit and destroy all that’s in his way creating conflict and war everywhere he goes, living with and extending his continuous fear.

“Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.” — Viktor Frankl, Psychiatrist

Can we live differently?

In living with self trust, one can begin to accept things. Self trust is in a sense a trust in the intelligence of the universe. To acknowledge that we don’t know and can not know everything. And it’s actually great. Taking a humble stance when viewing life and its offerings counters the strains that come with our inherent biological insecurity. We see more clearly. We see we’re a part of nature and that we’re all connected to each other. We learn to accept struggle, failure, loss and even death. We stop chasing and stop worrying all the time. And we can stop clinging and let go of the past. We don’t follow the crowd that’s brainwashed by propaganda, that organized lie that preys on our desires and fears. We accept challenge and change. For everything, including knowledge itself, is provisional.

“Reality always outruns apprehension. ” — Terence McKenna, Writer

To me, the phenomenal art of Katsushika Hokusai represents the powerful and magnificent journey of human existence.

Instead of forcing things, and hoping for things to turn out, we focus on just being. Attention is paramount. We make art instead of talk about making art. We avoid the superficial, the empty, and the banal. We lose any concern for what others may think of our insistence on living authentically. Our time is spent on observation, exploration and creating. Instead of comparing and competing with others, we cooperate and connect with them; we build synergy. We grow beyond the limits of our existential immaturity and refuse to judge and label others with our ideations. We focus on attending and giving. Life becomes about quality, not quantity or quickness. With self trust, we stop doubting that deep urge inside us that says to do what we might mentally fear the most. We trust the intelligence that’s beyond our understanding.

And we will be rewarded.

LIke a painter who walks around his model, we begin to see from different perspectives of what’s in front of us. We expand our powers of perception; we see wider, deeper and clearer. Each moment carries greater meaning. Each step we take — the stroke of our pen or the turn of the clay in our hands — has value because it contributes to real and honest living. Instead of the ideology of a commodified and financialized world, we choose the reality of being. We choose humanism over mechanism. And in all that we do, there’s no idea of pride or glory but only a view that’s generous, like that of our creator, both completely benevolent yet ironically self-sufficient. We focus on making things and appreciate what’s been made. Here, unmeasurable concepts like virtue, learning, journey, discovery, creation, gratitude, play and love all equate to the same thing. Death becomes vital and a part of life. We don’t worry about control or order. With self trust, we create our own order. All things become simpler. Day to day existence becomes selfless and beautiful. Life becomes, as in our greatest dreams, “a life worth living.”

“Airplanes are not tools for war. They are not for making money. Airplanes are beautiful dreams.“ — from Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises.”

Seeing the whole

The little seen photography of Stanley Kubrick before his famous filmmaking career. Kubrick was always an excellent photographer and his way of seeing the whole was a key foundation to the compositional beauty and gravity of his movies.

“…if one would solve the everyday problems of existence, whatever they may be, one must first see the wider issues and then come to the detail. After all, the great painter, the great poet is one who sees the whole — who sees all the heavens, the blue skies, the radiant sunset, the tree, the fleeting bird—all at one glance…then he begins to paint, to write, to sculpt; he works it out in detail. — Krishnamurti

Seeing the big picture seems so difficult. Why is that?

I suspect it’s the dominance of our approach to life, which is becoming ever more mechanical and detailed oriented. We are so left-brain dominant. We seem prone to turn our attention to small, busy abstractions. We automatically think they’re somehow more real, more informative and thus far more important than anything else in comparison. Furthermore, details, even triavialities, have a certain urgency about them, make it doubly hard to turn away. Unfortunately, this gets us into tremendous trouble. This is especially so when we use our pin-point acuity at the wrong time.

Timing is everything. We must know when to think and when to do.

Like a bird that’s going about its daily activities, we need to see big and see small. Most prey animals do both at the same time; they keep one eye out for predators (the big picture environment) while it keeps the other eye fixed on the worm in the ground (the small detail). Unfortunately, we humans are unable to operate under this kind of arrangement. Like most predators, our eyes aim stereoscopically to target our prey. Our goals are specific and thus the details before us are both demanding for accuracy and urgency (our target might escape!). And driven by our desire/greed (i.e. getting the worm), we psychologically forget the larger game.

“I make my work emerge naturally… with no apparent effort but thought out at length and worked out from within.” — Joan Miro

The artist does this when he gets so obsessed with the minutiae of specificity — challenging technicalities that reveal themselves in the strain of the moment — that he messes up the main idea. He’s so caught in the busyness of doing and fixing that he doesn’t even realize that the reason he’s struggly so mightily (later on) is because he’s built his work on a bad foundation. He twists and turns, changing this detail and that, even altering the original core essence of his work. Even professionals fall prey to this terrible habit. It’s easy to forget but skill alone is not enough to ensure success.

We must work always from big picture to small, from the ground up and from the inside out.

When we mess with our workflow — the proper procedural approach to creation — we mess up the work. It’s inevitable. Big studios do this; beginning/advancing production on a project before ironing out story issues or even questioning whether they actually have a good idea in the first place. The individual animator does this; fixing and polishing his shot that has terrible acting and design choices. In both cases, they are working to finish something that’s actually never really even begun. Afterall, re-adjusting and polishing garbage can never transform it from being what it is, garbage!

“Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Stop when you realize things are going in the wrong direction.

Too many people, not just artists, just continue onwards despite knowing that they’re going the wrong way. It’s sad but true; habits are hard to break. Call it pride, call it stupidity, but this is almost default behaviour with most people. We repeat the same actions expecting different results. How can this not drive us to bitterness and mad dissappointment?

The solution is simple even if it is hard. (Hint: if it’s too easy and convenient, it’s probably wrong)

The long approach is almost always the right approach. It’s also the simplest. Always spend adequate time to think, explore and plan. Then do the work. Work in order. Review and adjust accordingly, each time checking if you’re on track with the grand design of things. I often remind my own students: First compose the music, then play the music. Design the building before you build it. Learn to see how you actually think and work.

“Consciousness illuminates itself by paying attention to it.” — Albert Camus