It's All About The View
Gain energy by changing your perspective
According to a Buddhist friend of mine: It’s all about the view. (And no, she isn’t in real estate.) Ever since I first heard this expression, I’ve loved how much power it hides in plain sight, right there in its simplicity. “You think you’re right? You think your opinion is the one that matters? Well grab your hat and come with me. Let me show you how this looks from another angle.”
It’s surprisingly easy to forget that our personal view of a thing or a situation is exactly that. Personal. But it isn’t the only view available. Once we believe something to be the way it is, its ‘truth’ becomes part of us. And often, without ever making any conscious decision to do so, we then carry that truth with us. And the longer we carry it, the harder it becomes to modify that truth, or to turn it on its head. It’s something we might say of ‘elderly’ people: “Well, don’t expect them to change their behaviour now. They’re totally set in their ways!”
Personally, I don’t want to become that kind of old person. Quite aside from the fact that I think mere survival through the coming decades is going to demand flexibility, adaptability and resilience from all of us. Becoming ‘set in one’s ways,’ ain’t what I would call an ageing strategy. So, no matter what age we presently are, how can we prevent this from happening? I think, by changing our view(s) as often as possible. Curiosity is healthy. It keeps us moving forward. It keeps us wondering, and guessing, and trying to figure out solutions. It’s a crucial stepping stone on the pathway towards compassion. And fortunately – unlike many other natural resources – curiosity is one that is endlessly renewable.
So, in the spirit of reflecting back, I thought I’d share a few things that ‘energised my view’ this year. (While also not discounting a few valuable lessons from previous years!) These are things that altered my perception of ‘what I thought I knew’, and in so doing, brought me intrigue and delight, and reminded me that change is pretty much the only constant in our lives, so why not get better at welcoming and embracing it?!
Some of these things are from nature, because I find nature endlessly surprising and rewarding. And a few are decorative objects or art works. Because I see art works as invitations. They invite me to change my view immediately because, to me, at its most elemental, an art work is a specific person saying, “This is my view of how I see the world. And now I’m placing it in front of you. Can you see what I see, as well? Or do you see something different? How does the world look to you?”
However, this shifts slightly when the object in question is so old that it no longer carries the name/identity of its creator. Then I feel I’m invited somehow, into an even deeper contemplation, where ‘the view’ becomes about adding the multiple layers and complexities of time. “How might my view, from where I’m standing now, make this thing look different from how it was standing-in-the-world, all the way back then?”
So, the first piece is a contemporary sculpture by the Italian artist Fabio Viale. I first saw it at a TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) in Maastricht, several years ago. I was walking through the fair, en route to something else, when the sight of this piece distracted me with an unexpected thought: “What’s a Styrofoam sculpture doing at TEFAF?” Surprising first level: Styrofoam (or polystyrene). Surprising second level: When did I become such a snob?! So of course I had to take a closer look.
This revealed what my glance had suggested, that this was a three-dimensional representation of the iconically-recognisable Mona Lisa. I was intrigued that her nose was missing, which took me by association to that other icon, the Great Sphinx of Giza. Now I was smiling. Which is when I leaned in closer to discover, um no, this is not polystyrene – this is hand-carved Carrara marble! Which got me outright laughing, because this piece was challenging my views in multiple ways. You think you’re seeing this correctly? Well, look again, there might be more to discover. And if you hang around a moment, you could even have additional fun by watching the reactions of other passers-by. Curiosity, instantly rewarded!
Later that day I researched Fabio Viale and found his body of work, including videos of him motoring about in Venice, and in Rome’s Tiber, in a speed boat he has carved out of a solid block of marble. Intriguing, inspiring, energising.
This year I was fortunate enough to attend the opening of a small exhibition of rare and unusual works: drawings by the French designer René Lalique, whose creations include glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments. Made between 1894 and 1910 and produced in pencil or Indian ink and embellished with watercolors and gouache, these represent ‘views from a unique angle’, because they are drawings Lalique himself used for planning designs and presenting them to his clients.
At the opening, Lalique expert Nick Dawes gave a lecture that brought my attention to something fascinating. Like many others in France from his time, Lalique was dazzled by the style of decorative objects from Japan, that appeared in the Paris Universal Expositions of 1867, 1878, and 1889. (Lalique himself received top honours when he exhibited his works at the 1900 Paris Exposition.) So, like the Japanese (who have access to very few precious metals from the ground beneath them) Lalique uses mostly non-precious materials – in this case carved horn, plus a small amount of gold and diamonds – in his jewellery. But unlike any French designer before him, Lalique also adopted the Japanese approach of ‘form follows function’. Whereas the standard approach would have been to create a hairpin and then to plonk two swallows on top of it, in this case the question: ‘Where do the swallows end and the hairpin begin?’ becomes moot. The swallow’s wings ARE the hairpin. The hairpin IS the two swallows. A view in flight, shall we say?!
The René Lalique Drawings Exhibition continues at New York’s A La Vielle Russie, until March 29.
Then a little further up Fifth Avenue, at New York’s sprawlingly spectacular Metropolitan Museum of Art, some jewels-in-nature pieces captured my attention, by the Russian jeweller-creator extraordinaire, Carl Fabergé. Mostly widely known for his Imperial Eggs, portrayed variously in popular culture including movies like Octopussy, Love Among Thieves, and Ocean’s Twelve, Faberge’s workshop also created sculptural objects, using precious and non-precious materials, like these flower arrangements. Quite apart from them being staggering achievements in design and craftsmanship, there is something about their original intention – their ‘view’, if you like – that appeals to me. Many of them were made as gifts for Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna. During the long, dark and bleak winter months, the Czarina evidently took great comfort in being able to gaze at these exquisitely beautiful flowers, to keep the faith that eventually, spring would come again. In this way, to me, they are instrinsically about hope.
In the permanent collection of the Morgan Library & Museum, I came across some items I’d never witnessed before, that I found quite astonishing for the views they both encapsulated and could create. These are two to five thousand year-old scenes carved into small (one to three cm high) cylinders of various stone types (like hematite, carnelian or marble) that, when rolled in soft clay, reveal a scene, decorative pattern, or story. Apparently they were generally worn around the neck and were used much like we use a signature today; as a form of identification.
This first one, from between 1650 B.C. and 1350 B.C., is summarised as:
“Nude goddess with opened veil -- Worshiper holding hare behind leg before enthroned deity(?) with cup -- In sky, star, sun disk in crescent -- Fish in field -- Terminal: sitting antelope above two small female figures -- Upper border, three vultures with spread wings.”
I find it an incredible amount of information to be able to compress into one view, that you can then ‘expand’ if you like, into another view.
The following seal, from between 701 B.C. and 601 B.C., is summarized as:
“Winged hero with scimitar holding reversed bull as he confronts attacking lion.”
I adore the detail of these pieces and am intrigued by questions like:
“Who were the storytellers? Who were the readers? Why this particular story? Were there limits on what could be depicted in these stories? If so, who created such limits and why?”
That’s the wonderful thing about curiosity. Once you light the flame it can keep leading you onwards and further onwards, into endless amounts of darkness just waiting to be illuminated!
Nature is something I find that can open your curiosity in all kinds of surprising and unexpected ways. What caused that tree to grow in such a particular shape? Why do those mosses and lichens grow on those bits, but not on those other bits? What might this area have looked like 100 years ago? What might it look like 100 years from now? This autumn and winter I’ve enjoyed some beautiful walks in woods both in the Netherlands, and upstate New York. Following are a few images of views that invited me to look closer, or look in different ways, during those walks.
Having now traipsed you through a few museums and forests, I’d like to conclude this post with something personal about the power of ‘changing one’s view.’
I came out as a gay man to my parents when I was 18 years-old, and they – my mother in particular – did not take it well. I had a boyfriend at the time, whom they had both met, and they both liked. Nevertheless, they wanted me to see a doctor (at their expense) who, apparently, would ‘cure’ me of my wayward desires. Additionally, they wanted me to call things off with my boyfriend, and cancel an upcoming holiday to Hong Kong and China I had planned with him.
I thanked them for their concern and told them I was happy with how I was. And I assured them I would not be ditching my boyfriend at their behest, I would not be seeing any doctor, and I would not be cancelling my holiday either, as I was paying for it with money I had earned myself. And so began a period of ‘frosty’ relations between me and my parents.
Until a few years later, in London, I rather unexpectedly wound up in a coma. (Something I mentioned in my first Bright Side piece – Of Celebrations & Creativity in Anxious Times.) At this time, my parents flew to my bedside, and were both somewhat amazed to find me surrounded by wonderful people; a mixture of old friends and new, gay and straight, male and female – none of the details mattered – they were simply all good people whom I loved and cared for, who were now taking incredibly good care of me. This was the beginning of a thaw in our frosty period. It was when I also began to see a different view, which was… All my parents had wanted was for me to be happy. Previously, they had thought my ‘choice’ of being gay was dooming me to a life full of sadness. That was the thing they wanted for me - not so much that I wouldn’t be gay, but that I wouldn’t be sad. Now they began to see that even in the context of me being locked up in isolation in an infectious diseases hospital in North London, I was still receiving letters from afar and visitors nearly every day. I was anything but sad, because I was bathing in love and friendship.
Cut to around seven years after that when my parents attended a dinner I hosted after graduating from New York University, with another motley but loving crew of students & non-students, men & women, gays & straights, and blacks & whites. And my parents had a ball – with all of them! The following day, while sifting through the various enjoyments of the preceding day’s graduation and dinner, my mother startled me with the following:
“You know, it’s kind of a blessing for us that you turned out to be gay. Because if you hadn’t been, we would have missed out on meeting all these wonderfully interesting people. We would have missed all these marvellous things you have opened our eyes to!”
For a rare moment, I was speechless. All I could do was hug my mother, and then my father. Eventually I was able to say, “Thank you. Thank you for choosing this for yourselves. You could have hung on to your views, which would only have increased our mutual bitterness, over the years. But instead you chose to discard what you thought to be true, in favour of embracing new information. I find that an incredibly brave decision.”
So there you have it. Maybe you’d like to try ‘changing your view’, today. Especially perhaps, as we’re heading into a new year, non?! And if you do so, please consider sharing your experience via the Comments below.
Try picking up a genre of book that normally you’d never read. Go and experience a different kind of movie, performance, art gallery or concert. Try a sport you’ve never tried, or walk an unfamiliar path. Let Nature be your guide, and simply follow where she leads. Or go up a few levels of difficulty and try to let go of a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Embrace someone you’d sworn never to hug again. My parents did it, and I bet you can do it too. My dear Dad’s not with us any more, but that’s him in the photo that begins this piece, in the Snowy Mountains of Australia, showing me at a very early age that you know what?
It’s all about the view!
Love and light,
Matthew
Darling Matthew. Thank you for the reminder to look at everything from a different angle. Keep up the inspiring writing.
I’m filled with renewed hope this morning, having read this wonderful essay. Thank you Matthew! Lisa