Peace

Slade has done it again. He took a simple concept and put it into words in a way that has deep implications. His latest post, Spinning your Story, talks about how we can transform the stories of our own life simply through a new perspective. The Stories that No Longer Serve You, the original piece that inspired his follow-up, is also purely magical. These two posts were the firestarters of what I’m writing about here, the changes I’ve been going through recently.

Our continual experience of this life is nothing more but a single moment traveling along the axis of time, changing at every interval. That is our prime human quality, our ability to evolve, to move away from the things we no longer wish for, to align our lives with our self declared purpose. In short, spinning our stories.

I used to be - still am, to some extent - a violent person. My emotions have carried me away more times than I can count, bringing me right to the edge, thankfully allowing me to stop right before irreversibly crossing the line. But after much searching within me for the cause of this seemingly unwanted behaviour, I came to a baffling conclusion: the energy behind these impulses I have felt isn’t something bad; it’s actually the source of my passion, my inspiration. The violent states I have found my mind in are too often just a way for my spirit to express a primal, creative urge that I haven’t really given an opportunity to come forward through other means.

I realize that I am able to transform the violence I feel into something different. Chaos can be destruction, but also creation - ultimately, both of these opposites join in a single circle of endless transformation. Physical matter continually changes form; oceans to clouds to rain to rivers, and so on. The same also applies to the matter of the mind, the heart and the spirit.

Now I finally have an explanation for those spontaneous bursts of passion overcoming me from time to time, those rare but overwhelmingly strong urges to create art, causing actual, physical pain to me if I don’t drop everything to follow them to the artistic extremes they will inevitably lead me.

That is what happened to me that other day when I made a fractal that expressed pure violence, an energy that burst out of me right onto the digital canvas, interrupting the midst of a regular, dull day at my job. It urged me to say what I couldn’t find words for at the time, releasing a vital passion from deep within me, making me feel like my spiritual lifeblood was being splattered across the screen.

It’s hard to explain if you haven’t lived it. My spirit was screaming, forcing me sit up and take notice; Social inhibitions and self-imposed responsibilities faded away, leaving room only for pure creative instinct. A long confined energy was liberated in the midst of a whirlpool of conflicting feelings. It was simultaneously maddening and exhiliarating.

Since that day, I have been consciously spinning my story, transforming a life of frustration, stress and repressed creativity into that of an artist on the path to self-discovery. Choosing to gain my bread elsewhere allows me to fully delve into my work without tainting it by thoughts of profit and marketability. I am starting to develop a sense of compassion, total acceptance of all the elements present in my life. I finally feel that I am beginning to know what I stand for. I am decyphering the message, and if there was only one thing I could pass on to others in my lifetime, it would be this:

All human beings are capable of creative expression. Rather than having you admire my art, I’d rather inspire you to make your own, whatever form it takes. Not all works of art are free, but Art, the right to create it, to feel it, to express it, is. Art is larger than any category we could slap on it. It’s so much more than just painting, sculpting, writing or making movies. It is a way of life, a way to express our divine spark in every action we take.

This has always been the underlying current of my blog, but now I have finally found the clarity to put it into words. This is a rather long post by my standards, and to wrap it up, I’d like to share with you a new spin I’ve put on a fractal you’re already familiar with, mixing up the same ingredients into something totally different, yet strangely familiar. I am calling it peace.

Seven Random and Weird Things

I got tagged by Patricia with this meme quite a while ago. The rules are simple:

1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

I will be skipping 4 and 5, considering that I’m quite late to join and there’s no one left I’d like to tag, thanks to Slade and his “7″ people

Anyway, here are my seven things, in no particular order:

1. I have a weakness for blogging, and I also happen to love cats. I can normally get away with it relatively undetected, being an eccentric artist and all, but I just couldn’t resist this meme, despite it being a little off-topic. Other responses I’ve seen so far have been great, and I’ll second the thought that infusing a blog with some actual humanity can only be a good thing. Someday, I’ll even blog about my actual cats (there are many of them, so be prepared!)

2. It’s currently over 30ºC outside, which is nothing surprising considering it’s summer down here in the southern hemisphere.

3. I have an exceptionally high IQ. My ego tells me this is really important, though I don’t really listen to him all that much. Anyway, from early childhood I was always fascinated by mundane objects that border on the metaphysical, and was driven to quiestion their very nature. Automatic doors, electrical circuits and mirrors, specially, always gave me the impression of revealing the deepest secrets of this world. More on this in a not so distant blog post.

4. When I was 18, a lot of people thought I was 22. Now that I actually am that age, people tend to guess around 27.

5. I speak 3 languages: native tongue (german), that of my country of residence (spanish) and english (of course). it’s curious that speaking multiple languages actually deepens one’s understanding of each of them. The superficial shapes one perceives normally start to give way, revealing the underlying structure of a given language from the perspective of another. Languages are truly marvelous human inventions.

6. Being creative in an artistic way runs in the family. In fact, my brother’s band recorded their first song just a while ago. I’ve said it elsewhere and will say it again and again: You’re an artist as soon as you start considering yourself one. So congrats to my brother, who has the guts to go out into the world and chase his dreams.

7. I don’t eat meat. Not because I have anything against it in principle, but because I just stopped liking it. I still eat plenty of fish. More on the philosophical debate behind this at some later time, go read this article by Kenton in the meantime.

There are a lot of random things I thought of, but since this post had to be capped at 7, I think I’ll be sneaking them into my future posts, one little piece of randomness at a time. Looking back over my archive, some my older entries feel a bit lifeless, missing a certain spark I have always professed to have. It’s all about that spark - true human interaction - not just people throwing words at one another. Anyway, if you are reading this and haven’t done the meme by any chance, please be my guest and let me know about it.

Things are changing

The last few days have turned a large part of my life upside down. Externally, everything is looking normal, business as usual. However, I feel like a totally different person. It’s true that my time tends to be rather limited, but I’m not kidding myself: There are several posts in my mind that need to be written (lest they fade into the ether again), but I have been stalling whenever I actually had the time to sit down in front of a keyboard. That period has come to an end though, the ingredients have been fermenting far too long, it’s time for me to start spinning them into something different. Definitely coming soon.

I have been very active making fractals at least, and I’m wondering how many of you would be interested if I put them up as free wallpapers, considering that I now have several gigas of free space here at wordpress.com, and could easily put them on a separate page on my blog.

So, if you would like to grace your desktop with these little fragments of beautiful chaos, now is your time to speak up by leaving a comment. I’ll try to make specific images available per request.

Here’s a little teaser of things to come, hope it inspires you as much as it did me.

Violence

I just had to get this out of my system. Sudden burst of inspiration, expressing something I can’t even begin to try putting into words.

At times like this, I feel that only blogging keeps me alive. Thanks for reading.

Let it Flow

I’ve been planning to open up my first passive income stream for a while now, so around end of last year I took the leap and got my first batch of illustrations approved by Shutterstock, a stock photography site which also takes fractals and other digital images.

I have made $ 5.25 so far. Doesn’t look like much at all, but considering that I have uploaded very few illustrations (with hundreds more to come), I can definitely see some potential here. Even if it doesn’t add up to much in the end, the main reason I’m doing this is because it’s a passive income stream, and with no money investment required, I don’t really have anything to lose.

That is actually a very important point. I’d rather risk a little wasted time than a missed opportunity. I see all too many people frustrated over their financial situations, but most of them don’t do a thing about it except complaining and daydreaming.

Invoking abundance over and over again will probably make you feel a rush of positive energy every time, but the surest way to channel some actual cash right into your pockets is to open up and just let it flow - in both ways.

The value you provide goes out into the world, a tiny part of your soul contained in the wrapping of your choice - little bits of color in my case. Sooner or later an answer will come, in the form of physical tokens; bits of metal, paper or data representing the value you’ve added to humanity at large.

This exchange can be very invigorating indeed. I’m still trying to find my way around the peculiar creative challenge that working in the stock environment poses, so I’ll have to post about that on a future occasion. In the meantime, stay tuned!

If you’re interested in Shutterstock as a photographer, graphic designer or for any other reason, the following affiliate links will take you to the site.

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Elemental Storm

The savage beauty of chaos surrounds me. A tale of the elements weaves itself and is whispered to me by the wind, unfailing companion to all who bother to listen.

What is it telling you?