“Nothing has meaning until we give it meaning.”
By way of an illustration, Robert Rauschenberg created his “White Paintings” (1951) in the monochromatic painting tradition which aims to reduce things to their most essential nature, and to subsequently lead to the possibility of pure experience” (source).
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997).
Thank you, Peter, for the wonderful reminder that all is as it is until we bring our own meaning to it.
I remember first seeing Rauschenberg’s paintings many years ago and feeling perplexed and vexed by his simple expressions of what I believed at the time to be obvious. How could white be other than white?
Yet the art in itself is without meaning uncertain I apply my own varnish to it. White as snow, as a cloud, as my mother’s handkerchief, as the milk I poured into my tea this morning. As Ajahn Chah, the Theravada Thai teacher, often said “All is uncertain.” Even white.
Every colour contains every colour, even white.
A clear glass crystal holds intense and beautiful colours.
The light gives true colours and meaning.
Welcome back 🙂
Leaning over the railing as the COHO ferry approached Victoria, I spotted a dark object bobbing in the water: about 8 feet in length, round, shiny. What’s that? Looks like a log. No one else seemed to pay attention to the thing: people were taking photos of the coast line, chatting and pointing, getting ready to disembark.
What if I’d shouted “look! a whale!”? Would the “log” have turned into a “whale”? Would people have come running to take pictures? What if it hadn’t been a log at all, but a scuba diver, or a sea monster looking at us? What if sunlight and waves had played tricks on my perception? What if I’d dreamed the whole thing?