Art of Life, Art Full Life

THE SUM OF ITS PARTS VS THE GRAND DESIGN

The ‘Big Picture’, you know that one, yes? All the time people say to you “look at the Big Picture”; usually just before they try to sell you something, be it a car, a house, or an idea.

So, this ‘Big Picture’ aka ‘The Grand Design’, this thing that we are all a part of and is supposedly therefore a part of us; would be the Universe, right?

Now it seems to me, just sitting here, actually I was lying in bed contemplating getting up after a night of my usual weird and wonderful dreams –(of which this could be the result by the way…)- when this thought of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole, that’s been circling the drain of my brain for a while now, got caught up on the safety filter and got re-cycled; so here I sit at this laptop regurgitating it for public consumption, what a pleasant metaphor – I do hope you have eaten already?

Anyway, I digress, my favourite hobby. To get back to these parts, well those would be us then. Very simple statement on the surface but as we all know nothing is that simple – just ask the guy who built the Titanic!
I’ll bet he wasn’t too clear on the ‘Big Picture’ in that perhaps he didn’t take a clear perspective on what his design was going to be doing and where it would be doing it, after all the design in itself was flawless, according to him, the designer, perhaps if he had consulted someone who had been in the waters he may have been able to describe hazards such as icebergs that go with the flow causing chaos wherever they go, who knows?

Again, it reminds me of that little tale in one of the English books at primary, do you remember them? They would have a host of wonderful information like what a baby eel was called and interspersed between all this information on verbs and clauses there would be a little homily where everything would be put together. There was one in particular that tickled me; I had no idea at the time why, it was the way it scanned it read like a horse at the canter; I now know it was possibly my first light bulb experience on my way to discovering chaos theory.

It was an anonymous author and it was about how the simple act of losing a nail from a horseshoe lost a battle. I think it may have been about Paul Revere but don’t hold me to that. Suffice to say if you don’t know the piece that this bloke was given a message to take to a general he went to jump on the horse and noticed that the horse’s shoe was loose, but he was in a hurry and it was a very important message so he ignored it, ran the horse like a madman, the horse lost the shoe, they were in the middle of nowhere and the horse couldn’t go on without a shoe so the message didn’t get there and the battle was lost and therefore the war was lost – all for the want of securing one little nail.
Taking this into consideration, just think of the power that one man had to change the course of history.

Are you getting it now?

I have this friend who works hard and is depressed most of the time, he’s not happy! I asked him what he wanted to do about it. He asked me what I meant, like he had no control over his own state of mind, and you know he doesn’t know that he has.

Or, he really doesn’t want to know – and I think that is the crux of the matter, for if we know, then we have to take some responsibility for it, we have to be at cause!

He is right, being at cause is hard work, taking responsibility for how you choose to use the power you have been given to change things takes guts. As a rule human beings don’t like change so much, we like to swim in our soup – bathe in our custard of trial and tribulations – that is what we know and we are all wary of what we don’t know. So we wallow in our comfort zones, envying the people who step out and get dry: craving the will to go forward and do it for ourselves but feeling the cold draught of a different atmosphere we sink right back into our ‘stuff’. It’s so much easier to give the power away, and then blame circumstances for your lot.

Don’t get me wrong, we all do it, even those of us who have the towel on and are eying the door to the next room…we have to empty the bath you see, and that means that we have to put part of ourselves into it again to connect to the chain that holds the plug in order to pull it out and let all that stuff go; it’s tempting to linger there in a memory but it’s not a memory it’s an emotion that clouds the memory, that is the sticky part, it’s a bigger state than Texas and I don’t mean Alaska! Keeping the mind on the ball is one thing and it is the easiest thing if you always remember what the ball is actually for, its goal in life is to get into goal, all you have to do is help it on it’s way.

It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Oh yes,it is that simple, note, I did not say easy. If it were totally easy we’d all be quite happy being and doing and the World would be full of contented and forward thinking individuals who would most definitely be more than the sum of it’s whole.

Everything we do each day either keeps us where we are or moves us forward. I have a little anxiety attack kind of thing when I move forward, that is when I know I have, my unconscious mind tells me by making me aware of a weight being shifted from around my heart. It’s doesn’t make me feel wonderful immediately, but I recognise that I’ve just stepped out of a comfort zone and into new territory; by doing as little as writing this and posting it on the net, or talking to a stranger who I know can help me but I’m less than totally confident won’t see me as a right twit.
It’s then I remember a story told to me by an old boyfriend the end of which is ‘ if they know you it won’t matter – if they don’t know you, well, it really doesn’t matter.

As long as you are being who you are. Who you know you can be. Every day can be a good day you have the power to make it so.

Is the sum of your parts greater than your being as a whole? Do you colour your area of the ‘Big Picture’, or do you give the brush to some other? Do you think the whole of your being is greater than the sum of your parts?
It’s just a matter of Balance. Pick up the brush, it’s your canvas, paint your picture bright, see what happens…