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Posts Tagged ‘Plato’

Be Kind Friday

Posted in Advice, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on November 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“The Paragon’– Headed to the Principle Gallery

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.

-Ian Maclaren

The quote above is often misattributed to Plato but was actually the product of Ian Maclaren which was the pen name used by Scottish minister Dr. John Watson (1850-1907) when writing his works of fiction which were highly popular in his time. Regardless of whether it was first uttered by Plato, Ian Maclaren or Peewee Herman, it’s darn good advice and applicable to any time or place. 

No matter how low you fall in your life there is inevitably someone in a far worse situation. I know from my own experience that what seems the bottom depths to me might seem a ceiling for others. Life is hard for many of us at some point in our lives but it can be extraordinarily harsh for some other folks on a regular basis, often for reasons beyond their control.

The flipside of this thought is equally as potent a piece of advice. It’s something I keep in mind constantly in loose partnership with the advice above. It would most likely be phrased: Be kind and humble, because there is always both someone worse off than you and someone far greater than you out there.

Just as there is always someone facing greater challenges than you, there is always someone who possesses more talent and ability, more intelligence, more everything than you. 

You may never know what the person in front of you in line at the supermarket is going through in their life, what struggles they might be fighting or what their special gifts might be.

So, be kind and humble. It takes so little effort, it doesn’t cost a thing, and doesn’t take anything away from yourself. In fact, it adds to who you are as a person and makes your small part of this big world a little better place.

Kindness often begets kindness, after all. And we could all use a little more kindness these days.

Amen. End of sermon.

So, let’s have a Be Kind Friday, okay?

Now kindly get out of here and have a good day. 

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Dark Gives Way

Posted in Current Events, Quote, tagged , on November 15, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

― Plato

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You can interpret this to suit your own perceptions, either of current events or your own situations.

For myself, I see it taking shape in the form of the Republican party, both in its members of congress and just plain old members of the party, who are frantically bending themselves (and the truth) into pretzels trying to avoid the light from illuminating what has really taken place.

This is a tragedy for these people who are sacrificing their integrity and honor to keep off the light from touching an abhorrent creature of darkness who would never do anything near the same for them.

It is also a tragedy for this country and the rest of the world because, in doing so, they are sacrificing the security and well being of of us all. They do so by gutting whatever trust and belief we had in our system of governance.

Yes, it is a time of  tragedy.

These men want to hold back the light that comes with truth and fact. They know that in a world of darkness, those who hold the hammer, the power that comes with governance, dictate truth and fact as they desire it to be, as it best serves their own interests.

Yes, it is a time of tragedy.

Bring the light and the dark will give way.

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I came across the painting at the top this morning and it really struck me in a way that had me writing of this post. It’s from back in 2003 and, fittingly, the title is Dark Gives Way. I like that I am reading it in much the same way as I did all those years back.

 

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The Upward Gaze

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on October 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »

GC Myers- The Upward Gaze smAstronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
–Plato

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I have painted a couple of paintings this past year that have featured an observatory propped upon a hill.   I like the idea that this building has a shape and a location that instantly defines it, making it almost symbolic of the desire to transcend this world that it contains.  This desire to transcend, to know more, is built within us and we  seek these existential answers in many ways, sometimes in the stars and sometimes in the spiritual.  Others seek these answers in other worldly ways, either through love , pleasure or labor, among many other things.

These different ways of searching  are what I think is the central theme of this new new painting, The Upward Gaze, a 20″by 24″ canvas that is part of my November show, Alchemy, at the Kada Gallery.  The observatory is there resting high above the other buildings as it looks for the celestial answer: where have we come from?  Then there is the a church with a steeple that is pointing upward seeking an response from above to its question: where are we going?  On the lower left there is a barn among the fields which for me symbolizes the question: what is our purpose here?  The Red Roofs of all of the buildings here act as indicators, each pointing upward.

The road heads outward from this group of building, moving  toward and disappearing before  the horizon, over which an all-knowing  sun/moon hovers among a mosaic sky.  The soft,broken colors of the sky feel like light particles to me, the energy that propels this whole thing.

It’s a seemingly simple painting but I think there is much more to it…

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