Finally My Art History Minor Can Help You

Oh, my little nit-pickers and over-analyzers… I was INSPIRED today by someone who was the literal living breathing thinking-it-to-death definition to point this out to all of you….

Sometimes people get very hung up on the little details…so much so that they can’t see the bigger picture, but claim they are trying to by figuring out how the little things fit together…and they get so focused on those details they do not see the biggest picture.

Today our teacher is Seurat, the guy who used those dots to paint. Now, first, let’s look at a Seurat painting and see the whole picture:

Why thank you Georges Seurat – what a lovely image of a 19th century day at the park we have here.

Some of you may remember this image from Cameron’s freak out in the museum in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where he keeps looking at the painting, and he just starts seeing dots…which is bringing me to my point (I have one.) Here, let’s take a close up of one of Seurat’s paintings, shall we:

Now, I want you to, on your monitor, if you can, just focus on like a centimeter square of that image above.

If you do that, can you tell me what the fork you’re looking at (had I not already made a point of telling you)? No? But those are the little ittle bittle details. Shouldn’t you be able to tell me with your face mashed up really really really tight to that picture what you’re looking at and how those dots correlate to each other to make a bigger picture, just from staring at one teeny centemeter of the image? You couldn’t tell me then? I’m being mean, am I?

Stop giving me dirty looks, I’m teaching you something about life and using art to do so, and most people need to attend college for that. 😉

Now, lets break this down a bit more… Lets say there are three types of people. The first type can only see a centemeter of that painting at a time and they need to be uber close up to it. They struggle to figure out if this is an image, or if this is just a lot of dots. They struggle to figure out why this dot is here that color dot is there, but because they are so focused on such a small part, all they see is colored dots. The second type can see the picture as a whole, but finds themselves intrigued by its pointillism (such an annoying way to try to paint, been there done that,) so they do also look closer to see the dots, then back again to see the picture, then look at the dots, and then, giving one more appreciative glance at the masterpiece (the whole picture, not the dots,) has now an idea of how the painting was made, but also appreciates the picture for the image it is showing them (ie the whole compostion). Now the third type, they are too blind to see the dots – they glance at the picture, see the day in the park, and move on. They do not seek any little details, in other words.

Now, type one? They are neurotic worriers and over analyzers, constantly trying to pick out the bigger picture by too close of an examination. As best I understand, they feel that by seeing the teeny weeny details and not the big picture, that the big picture will, at some point, fall into place.

Type three is someone who is careless and unobservant to want to heed the little details. They do not interest themselves in anything. This person isn’t highly neurotic like type one, but being so heedless is also not the best idea in life, as one day you might miss something interesting and important, and also, without taking any time to really observe, you’re less apt to retain the information, IMHO. I would still say, being a type three is far superior to type one – type one is gonna be staring at the dots for the next 25 years and saying “I think maybe I get it!” whereas type three has left the museum 25 years ago and barely remembers seeing anything there. 😉

Type two is someone who can appreciate the smaller details, but understands to see the big picture, the whole picture, one must stop focusing on just the little details. They do know the dots (little details) are put together in such a way to create a bigger image, but that while this is interesting, its the whole picture which we are meant to see.

Listen, I know its difficult sometimes when you want to get the bigger picture and you think the little details are the answer. Sometimes there is a hidden gem of knowledge in those details, but usually its just like standing with your eye against a Seurat painting – you won’t see anything worthy until you stop focusing tightly on the little whys and wherefores, and move back a bit to see the whole big picture.

If you choose to get so hung up on why, why, why, how, how, how, and what, what, what, you’re going to be stuck like the type one person wondering why this dot is orange and that dot is green and how that fits together. You like to think things so unto death, that if you compare your life to what I’m speaking about here, you will reduce a masterpiece to nothing more than random colored dots on a canvas.

The type one person thinks their spellwork and their life to death. They wonder things like “If I went out 3 minutes later, would I have missed meeting so and so, and if I missed them, would I have ever met them? Would I have met them at this or that time? And if so, how? Would their attitude have been different then? And if it was why and how?” (This keeps going for an etenity.) This is so unhealthy. Its so bad.

With spells, when you act as a type one (but what will happen if I do this? And if I do this? And could this be the outcome of that, or will I suffer some dire consequence as an effect of these,) you’re going to worry yourself into a corner. You’re so intent on worrying something down to nothing, that if I compared your spells and life to a piece of fabric, you’d have rubbed that fabric apart til it was threads, then worried those threads apart to fibers, then the fibers unto dust. In the end, you get nothing, not even a lot answers. While a quick examination of the figurative piece of fabric we spoke of might have told you how it was woven or knitted together, and of what fiber content it was made of, instead its now ruined because you’ve rubbed and pulled and eyeballed because you could not just look at it for a few minutes. You needed to know if the fiber (say its cotton) was Egyptian or American cotton, and thought pulling and pawing would tell you, then you needed to know what state in America the cotton came from, and then what county, then what town, then what farm….all of this because you think it makes a huge difference, but when you really consider it, doesn’t have much to do with much. 😉 I’m presuming if you’d wanted to make that piece of fabric into a shirt, you’ve now more or less ruined the thing just for want of knowing trivial facts.

Let’s go back to our type one staring at the painting for a minute. So, let’s say the museum represents life in general, and we’re all alotted say, 2 hours in the museum (a life span,) and our people (the one, two, and three,) represent our life energy and movement through life. Now, type one – their life doesn’t go anywhere – they are to stuck on itty bitty details. They tend to have miserable lives that don’t go very far and these are the folks I’m always telling you about who just make their lives turn into a big unchanging rut. They are stuck on the one place for wont of just absorbing the little details, so they often do not move to the other opportunities, the other great things around them. Type threes on the other hand, go through things so quickly, there is no appreciation and nothing learned. In essence, things slide right off their back, but they don’t retain enough knowledge and often end up feeling life was rather hollow and unfulfilling. Type two likes to see the details, but also wants to see all the great things there are to see. If there’s only 2 hours in a giant art museum, you gotta go see those Van Goghs (uh oh, type one THE LINES THE LINES, HOW DO THEY FIT TOGETHER, I’m stuck so close I only see lines!!!) and the Monets (LINES, MORE LINES!) and the Rembrandts…and lets get some really old masters in here…. the DaVincis, and the Giottos, and the Michaelangelos…and they also go off to see the Terracotta Army of Qin, and the amazing pieces that the museum is housing from the tomb of Tutenkhamen, etc. Type two is appreciative of the creating of a piece, of the details, of the history, but not to such a degree that they can’t help but get stuck on a itty bitty tiny little spot for hours at an end. In the same respect, they are not so uncaring as to say “Hmm, pretty…what’s next,” for every display. They are interested in the things that life and the world have to teach them, and they want to absorb the information without becoming obsessed with the tiny details of one or two moments of life.

Are you guys getting what I’m saying? You can worry things to death so they don’t happen or you manifest your worries for want of figuring out if the fact Janet had pepperoni pizza on a friday in 1998 might have somehow led to a course of events that now created her leaving you (type one,) or you can miss that manifestation happened altogether or how to bring the manifestation because you couldn’t be bothered to take a moment to consider how to do it (type three) or you can just find a nice middle ground and focus enough to see the factors that created the situation, without focusing so hard you can’t see the forest for the trees.

I hope I haven’t confused you all more.

I guess in essence, what I’m trying to impart is, if you want to see the big picture, stop worrying so much about what itty bitty events led to the big picture. There will be times when you do see quite clearly the chain of events from the small to the large, but by constant over analyzation and too close focus, you never can see very well. There will be times for all of us when we focus to close and can’t seperate ourselves enough to see what’s going on, but those are the times to pull back, push the little details aside and look at the bigger picture.

Alright, well, hopefully I did help some of you. I could also apply Seurat to the bastardized ideals of karma most Westerners believe in, but I’ll take pity on you and I pray you digest this very very large pearl of wisdom.

~Cat

UPDATED TO ADD: Wow, okay that was fast. Alright, someone wanted me to clarify something, so I figure more of you might want me to. 😉 Here goes… What I’m trying to impart to all of you is not that you will always be in one of the three “types” I listed. We all have type one moments even if we’re not usually like a type one, and we all have type three moments even if we’re not usually a type three. What I want you to understand is that if you can identify type one or type three behaviors going on in you, to try to remedy this and find a happier medium.

I would say when it comes to advanced algebra, I’m a total type three. You can explain and explain and I might get it for like ten minutes, but I really just can’t absorb it. Its like I’m like “That’s great. What’s next?” I am also a type three when it comes to cars. I don’t care about that make or model or anything. Its “Whoop de do, what’s next” when we get to that topic, too. 😉

When it comes to Bourbons in the 18th century in France (I’m a huge history buff,) I’m a complete type one at times. I have to know what jacket the King wore to this fete, and I have to know who was sitting in the second row next to this duc or that comte. Its neurotic. Its a fixation. I do pull back enough to see the greater picture, but often I want to close in and know the motives and thoughts for everything about that time. I could bore you senseless on the whys and wherefores of people who’ve been dead for three hundred years. 😉

I try to remain a “type two” about my life in general and my spells. This doesn’t mean I never work myself into a frustration and/or fixation and go all type one, and this doesn’t mean I was never just cavalier and unobservant and going all type three about things in my life or spells…of course I have been. 😉

What I’m trying to point out to you is that type one people (if on average you are type one,) tend to get too caught up in the little things to really make any impact other than to worry things to death. They can’t figure out the motives of something, so they have to pick it apart til they do. They can’t bear to let a spell manifest, because they have to think about its impact and what MIGHT happen or what WON’T happen – its like an unreasonable level of analyzation, not like 20 minutes one day, you did wonder about something a bit and think about it. 😉

Type three (if on average you are a type three) tend to do stupid things with spells like “Oh, I couldn’t be bothered to find this or that item, so I omitted it, and then I couldn’t be bothered to check what the effect of using this might have, so I just did it, and now I can’t figure out why my spell didn’t work,) or in life they can’t be bothered to remember that…oh, that they learned once that so and so had a really bad experience with a guy in a ski mask, so they are dumbfounded when so and so gets upset when Mr or Ms Type Three picks them up wearing a ski mask…because they couldn’t be bothered to retain the information or analyze that actions have consequences, etc.

Am I confusing people more? Perhaps…

Dumbing it down as far as I can, I’ll put it like this: find a happy medium where you pay attention, but not to the degree that you can no longer tell what you’re paying attention to because you’re too focused on the little things.

Does that help?