Atman Mehta

Art is a Mirror & the Artist is too

25th April 2020

It is my belief that life is indifferent, and beautifully so.

It is not out to please me or make me miserable. I may be at the risk of over simplification here but I do think that every morning I wake up and look in the mirror, somewhere inside I know that I have a choice to make in that moment - of whether to live today in misery or with contentment.

The choice, among the two, that I make for longer cumulatively, forms my outlook, my personality and perspective on life.

This is as simple an understanding that I have created for myself. I'm fully aware that it is a privilege to have the chance to make a choice. Many don't. Hence, my insistence on continuing to take that chance as long as I have it. Tomorrow may be different.

Contentment and misery, both, seem to be inside me. Not outside. I simply have to choose with a sense of conviction. And sooner that I start doing that, I've realised, that it begins to shape my every day.

So, my point of view to the question of whether life's difficult - It always is and never is. Depends on what I say to the mirror.

If I have decided to be content today, then every man and his dog have poetry. Trees seem to wave, the wind says hello, food is full of flavour and sleep gives rest. And if I decide to be miserable today, then I don't bother even to stop and look at a flower that has bloomed. Food is drab, people seem unhappy, and sleep makes me tired.

If I don't make a choice however, the choice is made for me and it is usually of misery.

The truth is that I have both kinds of days. Miserable days and days where I'm content. But having perspective makes either enjoyable.

It is all so strange, so mysterious and full of humour. I'm in love with it.

I feel that perhaps contentment is a skill. And so is misery. May be one has to practice each morning to be content till it becomes your nature and you don't have to think about it anymore. Like a classical singer doing riyaz; practicing his art at dawn each day. He doesn't have to think when he performs. He just has to be.

The trouble is that we expect contentment to come naturally to us and when that doesn't happen we are miserable (ending up practicing the art of misery). Does misery come naturally then? Not to a man who is content, I suppose. He must have to try real hard.

Just ask yourself - If you had everything you dream of, would you be content? If the answer is yes, then it's easy. Start being content and everything you have will be a dream anyway.

Self-experiment and give this a shot. We'll trade experiences later.

There are of course other factors that help you in this journey. External processes to aid the internal one. And they are the usual suspects. In my experience - adequate food (vegetarian, preferably vegan), enough rest (not sleep), fasting (once a week), meditation and exercise (preferably at dawn), keeping a daily journal (record thoughts, feelings, ideas), reading (poetry; a must), gardening (know the magic of a seed), cooking (at least a meal), cleaning up (dishes, your own rooms and toilets) and being involved whole heartedly in whatever activity you choose to do.

And I've seen, that slowly the rhythm of things starts revealing itself to you. Actions become conscious; engagement is complete; haste disappears and ordinariness becomes joyful.

I'm just like the next person. I have my worries, anxieties, troubles and entanglements. But there is an attempt to slightly expand perspective. Rather than these being unwanted, I have started to take a keen interest in them. Study them, befriend them. Give them their space. Not strangle them at their very sight. And soon, I've found that I genuinely feel for them. As much as I feel for joy, happiness, clarity and compassion. Anxieties want to be accepted just as much as happiness does. All these are not separate from one another. They together form any process.

That is what the path of an artist offers us, I think - To engage and be involved each moment and simultaneously observe and be distant.

As artists, we are in the field of shaping culture and human consciousness. We are responsible. And so, before we attempt to do that we must take time to shape ourselves. Unshaped artists make meaningless art which disfigures culture and cripples human consciousness. The result is the society we have today. It is the failure of artists. And many of them accept it to be so.

For society to evolve, political change has to take place. For there to be political change, there needs to be a shift in culture first. A shift in culture occurs when the soul of an individual is ignited. And art is the tool to do that.

In this sense, our every act as artists today affects the society of tomorrow. The challenge then is not merely to make art, but art that creates value. And for that we must first approach our life and the way we live it as art itself. Then whatever we create will naturally carry that alchemy.

It seems life is ephemeral and elusive. And the only way to live it fully I have known, is to work on myself day after day, and smile while at it.