Redtree Times

Chasing the Elusive— Now at West End Gallery

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

–Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946)

I spent too much time already this morning writing about the link between the image of the new painting above and the words of Viktor Frankl. It ended up feeling off the point and empty. I was trying too hard which, oddly enough, was the point I was trying to make.

We often try to force things into place in meaningless ways, hoping to chase down joy and avoid the pain, suffering, and heartbreak that life presents us as part of the deal of existing. Pursuing this sort of joy is like running after dandelion seeds in the wind. The nearer you come to them in your chase, the more the air movement from your legs and arms causes them to move further away. 

Sometimes we must be reminded that joy and meaning are often hiding in the duties we are obligated to fulfill as humans. The meaning that comes in giving of yourself in the service and care of others, for example.

The joy of the selfless rather than the selfish.

I don’t know that this new painting, Chasing the Elusive, fully captures what I am stumbling around with my words this morning. I see it as being about the effort we often make in chasing down dreams and meaning that are actually within us all the time, attainable if we recognize the purpose found in our duty and love for others.

I am struggling with expressing this, as you can see. I am going to take my own advice and stop chasing it. Just let it be.

Let the dandelion seeds settle. 

The painting, Chasing the Elusive, is 8″ by 16″ on canvas and is included in this year’s edition of my annual solo show at the West End Gallery, Guiding Light, which opens this coming Friday, October 17. The opening reception for the show runs from 5-7 PM. 

Hope you can make it. 

Here’s a favorite composition, Gnossiene No. 1 from Erik Satie. This is a little different take on it from a group called Decostruttori Postmodernisti. Not sure if Satie would have ever envisioned his piece being played by with a theremin and trombone. That’s the way the world goes round, right?