Reasoning and Logic | Original Painting

Here’s a painting on hand-cut-wood, meant to portray “Reasoning and Logic”. A complicated concept to put into an image!

It's interesting because this piece goes so well with everything I've been learning in the last few months, but when I first began, I didn't have a ton of motivation to complete what I’d "planned out.

I started The Mind Series as a way to illustrate the so-called “powers of the mind”, such as the power to imagine, such a gift!  As well as my interest in mental health, which is another reason this mind series goes so well with my past work. 

    I had been going through so many belief changes in the last year due to physical changes in my life. Challenges that uprooted my identity in so many different things. Due to these belief changes I lost interest in my mind series because its intention no longer aligned with my values. For example, I was practicing “creating my own reality” which is a spiritual and mental health practice that many people are practicing today. It's mirrored in religious teachings as well. 

As I started going on an existential crisis and a major identity shift, I realized that creating my own reality was quickly becoming a hindrance to my mental health. I now value “surrendering my reality” more than “creating it”. I realize that I don't have control over many things and trying to “create everything” was ultimately unhealthy for my thought process. The perceived control it gave me helped ease my mind for a while, but eventually created a sense of arrogance when things did happen and frustration when they didn’t go according to my plans.

  I’m not saying “creating your reality” isn’t a thing. In fact, I saw my cognitive shifts changing my circumstances and things moving. But I’m not putting all my trust in it. I would rather live in a more surrendered way, giving credit to The Source of Life instead of taking credit for myself.

      What I'm getting at is that my big life lesson over these last few months (or years really) has been that I don't really know anything.

I have bounced back and forth between the polarity of belief systems leaning hard to one side then swinging hard to the other like a pendulum. Now I rest more in the middle, neither believing nor unbelieving.

       It's not something you can easily put into words, that’s the whole gist of this piece, words can’t explain everything.

This piece is about logic and reason, a cognitive skill, part of our intelligence! The ability to connect ideas while involving our personal perspective. I’m doing it now while trying to explain this piece.

What I am finding is that no amount of logic or reasoning could bring me to any conclusions, at least ones that last into the next phase of life with all its new perspectives and experiences.

Recently someone said it so well, he said, “My whole life has been a series of realizing I was wrong in my thinking.” I resonate with that!

I wrote a poem while in the moment as I was painting, it goes like this:

  “Reasoning and logic; pros and cons. It doesn't matter how many times I go over it in my mind or from what angle I approach it, the only fact I can wrap my head around is that nothing can be controlled.”

And another poem on the piece which goes like this:

“The heart and the brain 

The compass and the weathervane 

Seem to all be insane 

        Spinning 

            Spinning 

                 Spinning”

     You really could drive yourself mad trying to get to the bottom of reality and find answers to every question. For each of us, it’s a matter of coming to terms with our own beliefs in our own head. You cannot force yourself to believe something you don’t, weather true or false. Where does mental health come in? Where is a safe place for our mind to rest? I certainly have my own answers, but even those answers are surface level compared to all I don’t understand. 

      There's a lot of things that we will never know, perhaps we're not meant to. Straining one's brain to comprehend the "uncomprehendable" may not be the safest place to reside long term. It’s fun to speculate or to watch answered prayers and make conclusions, it’s even a safety net for some to look to religion to give us answers we can trust and rely on. But ultimately it is a personal discovery. An awareness of trial and error, looking to results and consequences to navigate our mental health.

When we practice finding some kind of solid ground to stand on amid a turbulent inner working of the brain, that’s a mental health practice of metacognition; awareness of our thoughts; mindfulness.

      A thoughtful existence is not always easy, in fact my mental health was tossed to and fro by the “winds and waves of confusion” (related quote below), it didn't matter how many books I read, the gears would still turn in their own fashion. 

       I’m not always in-control of what goes on in my mind, much less my external circumstances. I do realize and notice the connection of things, but ultimately it brings me to a place seen at the top right of this painting; the throne room!

Who sits on the throne of my mind?

        There’s a spiritual text which has a verse that has stood out to me for quite some time, I could go on and on about its specific meaning to me, but I’ll leave that for another time. Here it is:

  “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God.” ~Psalm 73:16-17a  (this passage is not in context)

       While it’s certainly nice to sit on my own throne, I also resonate heavily with the surrender of that place to something so much greater than I, stepping out of the way in a sense. The “casting down of my crown at the feet of The One” sort of deal. (related quote below)

    The throne room is a major metaphor and picture, of course it doesn't have to mean what I say it does. You can bring your own meaning to any aspect of this painting, as you will inevitably do.

     This painting is much like a dream, in that there's little pictures you can piece together to make your own story; A Bridge.  

“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” ~Ephesians 4:14-15 (this passage is not in context)

“They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

‘You are worthy, our Lord and God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
    and by your will they were created
    and have their being.’ ” ~Rev 4:10b-11 (this passage is not in context)