Can we still paint ideal figures?

06 Sunday Dec 2020

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classical art, classical beauty, classical painting, grotesque in art, Hegelian idealism, ideal proportions

Truth as discoverable by the mind is a central impetus of Hegel’s philosophy. Beauty is expression in the moment of divine consciousness or spirit, finding its highest realization in the human form. One can see where this fascism of thought would buttress authoritarian regimes.

I use the term fascism to mean that mindset that leads towards a centralized process by which truth and beauty are determined. Variances, or deviances, that are incompatible with the centralized ideals are excluded by the process itself, with exclusion enforced in more or less aggressive physical repression.

We know that the Catholic church, in the Renaissance, sponsored those who thought of the human body as a language for divine ideas, for example, Michelangelo’s ceiling. This church is fascist in doctrinal enforcement, albeit with a more rare and sporadic expression of violence than political fascism. Religious control was exerted by other means, mainly political and organizational excommunication.

Did Greek artists, having been pointed out as having attained a high-mind instantiation of beauty in this sense, serve some flavor of fascist regime? It would be an interesting exercise to compare the idealism of Greek art, especially sculpture, with the fascist tendencies of governments at the time. Was Greek democracy controlling artistic expression?

Abused by fascism as it is, Hegel’s idealist concepts do have a certain appeal to the more democratically minded as well. Of course we can note on the other extreme is Marx’ appropriation of Hegel’s alleged notion of progressive dialectic for his own communist purposes. I say ‘alleged’ because it has been pointed out that Hegel’s dialectic, or triads, were internal to ideas, and not a conflict of external forces with each other (French Revolution followed by Reign of Terror, followed by republican government) as developed by Fichte. It is evident, in any case, that Hegel’s thinking is foundational to various schools of thought.

What I find appealing from Hegel is this notion of beauty as an expression of Spirit. But I’d like to take this fascination with the human form as an expression of beauty out of any context of historical progress of mankind.

With an ever diminished planet that has lost more than 50% of its species in the last 50 years, a planet that has ever diminishing natural resources, and that is becoming hostile to human life ‘in the open’ free from bad air, by now we’ve discovered that the notion that humanity as irresistibly progressing forwards towards a higher understanding of truth is funny, if not tragic. We can just look around at the chaos and degeneracy of politics to consider the state as a guarantor of anything aspirationally higher in the realm of being as simply silly.

By contrast, some corporations are doing more to elevate our humanity in the interest of a caring corporate culture, as has been the transformation of Microsoft. The early days saw a zero sum game in corporate culture that pitted employees against each other because come review time, people were ranked on a curve and the lower percentages were systematically managed out. Today we have training in Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), encouragement to show ‘grace’ to others in the time of pandemic, to be an ‘ally’ to those who don’t have a strong voice, flexible schedules to accommodate homeschooling parents, for managers to learn to have moments of listening in every meeting, and more. Not all corporations take a high view of humanity, yet it seems that those that do can still perform well because a good view of humanity is good for business.

Regardless of any of these contexts — whether toxic Republican vs. Democrat politics fueled by a division-hungry mass media, or the comfort of the Noble Corporation — on its own, in the moment, works of great beauty from the past still have an appeal in their own right. We only have to wander the classical sculpture gardens of the Louvre with the collections of figures totally disconnected from their original context for us to nevertheless marvel at the craftsmanship and beauty expressed. Beauty still touches artists as a response in the moment, and should be judged as that. Such art can be a satisfaction of higher ideals, an allusion to a state of being. The partial materialization of an aspirational state can be gratifying.

One does not have to accept the Humanist view that humanity is the center of the universe to affirm beauty. Modern theories of consciousness are rejecting the idea there is no consciousness in the sun, for example (as Hegel affirmed), or in animals (as Heidegger affirmed). Celebrating human beauty is not necessarily synonymous to anthropocentricism. We can apply the same idealist techniques to animals, and have compassion on them.

As an artist, therefore, I want to defend the option to render classical forms in a new way, and not preclude that purely on philosophical or ideological grounds. Such renderings are not an endorsement of a fascist regime. Nor should these forms necessarily be an expression of hostility to the principles of Diversity and Inclusion.

Painting a woman with a narrow waist and tight lines on curvy hips does not have to be interpreted as hostility to plus-sized women. Plus-sized models are still models, i.e. a standard of beauty. In fact, I find it ironic that the plus sized women shown in underwear ads on TV have their own lovely proportions, albeit in larger measures than the anorexic models of the past. Not shown are those whose waists are several times larger than their hips, the chronically mega obese, or those who have absolutely no seemly parts. Diversity & Inclusion is an extension of boundaries, not the lack of boundaries on subject matter to be included.

Advertisements of underwear or breast cancer awareness still strive to find a link to beauty because the viewer’s minds are looking for that link. The lovely colors and lighting that infuse the ads are a giveaway themselves. All models are to be shown in a pleasing light. The glorification of the completely grotesque is the realm of kinky fringe groups.

With all our guilting introspection about beauty, the objectification of women, the sexualization of nipples, affirmative action in favor of the obese, etc. are we putting a damper on freedom of expression? Those of us who would render the ideal find ourselves bound up with questions about how such works would be received, and where, if anywhere, they can still be exhibited.

Now in contemporary art we’ve seen a resurgence of classical aka ‘realist’ painters and painting schools. One only has to Google ‘classical atelier’ to see centers all over the US, Europe and other parts of the world. A survey of the output shows that artists are inspired by all shapes and forms of humanity, not just the classical notions of beauty. Thus classical techniques are applied to all forms, ideal or not. In a way, artists, with their endless curiosity about form, light and rendering, have been leading the way in inclusiveness. Within these art schools, curiosity into the ‘divine’ reflected in the forms of certain fit models is obviously not frowned on. It’s a welcome treat.

In prudish America, there has always been a diminished market for the public display of nudes in art. I suspect that emphasis on D&I will exacerbate that exclusion even among the liberals, those who traditionally were not prudish. Is curiosity about idealist beauty now politically incorrect for artists? How should those of us who wander into such subject matter think about it? Let me give you some positive ideas about how I approach the rendering of an idealized beauty, such as a female nude.

Having participated in many life drawing sessions over the years, as an artist I’ve learned to respond to form and to look for underlying structures. Knowledge of anatomy is critical to being able to explain visually why certain forms appear as they do. Understanding of direct and reflected light is important, as is a deep understanding of local color on the skin, and the temperature of light. All of these skills are applied regardless of the body type of the model in front of us.

The pleasure of working with a well defined, athletically toned model, is that there is little guesswork about the placement and interaction of muscles and bones. If you know your anatomy, for example, you can see that the quadriceps extensors are tensed because a knee is raised, and that angle of the clavicle is diagonal because the raised arm has pushed it upwards, etc. The goal of the artist is to provide a visual explanation to the viewer of what’s going on with the forms, given that there is limited perspective on a 2D surface. Anatomy that provides clarity is more aesthetically appealing that a formless blob of flesh.

Drawing an idealized figure goes beyond the simple observation and understanding of anatomy to the creation of poses that aren’t strictly speaking standing before us. With deep understanding of anatomy, you can master the orchestration of figures in a painting. Thus the figure becomes an expressive language for masters and illustrators alike.

What’s more, there is creative delight in determining the relative proportions of muscles and body parts based on functions attributed to the figures. There’s a certain act of personification in the ascription of attributes and capabilities to the figures and critters that populate our canvases. Just like in the real world where ‘bombshell beauties’ do exist, some subset of the figures in our imagined spaces are going to be ideal beauties.

There is also the freedom that one can have by invoking a ‘model’ in your canvass that could not be engaged or found in real life. With elevated skills, you are not limited by the population of real people willing to model. This sense of freedom and dominion over what can appear in a flat surface is magical, empowering and delightful to creators and viewers alike. In short, the expression of artistic imagination cannot and should not be constrained by ideological trends, be it D&I or fascism.

This doesn’t mean artists don’t have a social obligation to support a sustainable society. I believe we do have a moral imperative given the state of humanity on this planet. Thus, for example, art that espouses racial hatred or endorses the excessive consumer lifestyle should be judged from the perspective of sustainability. I don’t see how fabricated personas rendered in mythical art work should be shunned solely based on their ideal proportions. Idealized proportions in figures are still absolutely to be endorsed because they connect us to that core affirmation of beauty that all of us seem to have and need.

— Roy Zuniga

December 2020
Duvall, WA

Language in the Service of Myth

20 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by royzuniga in Uncategorized

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linguistics, mythology, semantics

Language is not religion and neither can there be religion without language. Religion only happens in community, which requires language. This is obvious. We think of religious language, like ‘atonement’, ‘propitiation’, ‘Holy Trinity’, ‘godhead’, etc. as the technical jargon of theologians. There is also a religious dimension to ordinary language.

For example, when I hear the term, ‘In the beginning’ I immediately think of the opening words of the Genesis creation story. ‘The walls come tumbling down’ is an allusion to the miracle of Joshua at Jericho. In modern terms, ‘may the Force be with you’ reminds us of the cosmic Star Wars — it has almost ubiquitous resonance in American culture, as does ‘the yellow brick road’, which makes me think of Dorothy skipping along her journey. Words and phrases like these have mythic connotations and are part of everyday language.

Many words and phrases are allusive; they refer to something beyond the literal meaning of any one word itself. The fact that a phrase makes you think of something else is core to humor and communication in general. How many times have you chuckled at inside jokes when someone makes a quote about The Office? If you’ve seen Seinfeld, just saying the phrase ‘soup Nazi’ makes the initiated smile in a way that can’t be explained by either of those words taken literally. In general any language, to be artistic and cogent, alludes to other contexts, and may be funny by way of contrast with the current context. Here, I’d like to focus on a very specific subset of those cases, i.e. when language that originated in a mythic framework gets used in daily language.

These cases cross a boundary between the mundane and the metaphysical. It is bringing a god-framework into daily conversations in a way that keeps the myth active in the mind and soul of a believer. In some people mythology is taken as real. It could be so presented by a preacher in church to be absorbed by those desperate to believe, or by a parent reliving Santa Claus with their wide-eyed children. It might be a teenager whose head is in Middle Earth while reading Tolkien, or even a politician who desperately needs a fabricated vision of society to be real. For these people, keeping that illusion alive is very important, and injecting everyday speech with allusive references to that mythic framework is crucial. For anyone to adopt the myth, they have to see and feel its truth in someone they trust.

The myth provides hope and resolution for questions that otherwise cannot be reconciled with normal language. That tension between what we know is true and what we make ourselves believe is true needs constant attention for the elevation to persist. This is where embedding mythic references in everyday language helps. There may even be a correlation between the high or low usage of mythic language in everyday speech and the percentage of the population that are believers. I’ll leave that study to the linguists.

What if we talked only in mythic language? There must be a subset of words and phrases that together cover 95% of what a mythic framework requires to function as such. In other words, there is a finite scope to the semantic ‘infestation’ of mythic connotations in everyday language for a specific myth. All the allusions to Christianity in Italian during the late Dark Ages, for example. That must be a large set because of the ubiquity of Christianity.

Going further back, was there a time where all written language was only religious in a given culture? In some ancient cultures, the biggest driver for writing or depicting things was documenting the perspective of the ruling and priestly cast. Early narrative language must have been centered almost exclusively around the sacred myths.

Of course accounting records were written for transactional and evidentiary purposes, as were the various laws, edicts and safe conduct passes. These were all written artifacts. I don’t suspect there was a market for tabloids and pulp fiction in the early civilizations when writing was expensive and only a few could actually write. Moreover, gossip, jokes, family stories, day to day conversations didn’t have to be written down. They were transacted orally only. In terms of important narratives that were written, it’s reasonable to assume that all that content was tied up with myths that had religious import.

There might have been a time when all written language was religious, and therefore when anyone sat down to read, the immersion in myth was total. Something like this must have immersed Egyptians who saw the state mythology presented to them everywhere in hieroglyphs. Such a complete saturation of mythic imagery in language can lead a population to do whatever is required by the gods because everyone is saturated with it. If all narrative language was religious content, there must be remnants of the worldviews embedded deep in languages today.

This brings me to a curious hypothetical experiment. Because myth-tainted terms are so crucial to the adoption and spread of a worldview, and because we want to shift world views to have content that drives sustainable behaviors, we can define a set of terms, images, phrases and metaphors that are the building blocks for new directed myths. These are not just taken at face value from a trusted prophet, but are rather purpose-driven myths based on the intent of a community.

Let’s face it. The prophets who came up with the myths that govern billions of religious people today didn’t have the foresight to incorporate behaviors that foster sustainable existence. Manifest Destiny is implicit in the cultural mandate in the Old Testament. Often the immorality of leaders (like polygamous and murderous King David) was on a different standard than that of the rest of the believers. With that example, believers today seem to have no problem tolerating a blatantly immoral autocratic President today. Blatant racism and genocide were advocated by God in the Old Testament. A culture of war is assumed to be the normal way of life for Roman and Greek gods. Today, arms races have become very popular the world over.

So often the legacy ‘Holy’ writ disappoints, even as we carefully cherry pick the ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ nuggets of piety out of the verbal morass that is Scripture. Let’s face it, the next generation of prophetic writers cannot be cut from the same cloth as those who gave us dominant world religions from the past. We can do better, and one way is to constrain them by providing normative context in a set of ‘toys in the sandbox’ language artifacts for them to build with.

We can put coexistence, empathy, tolerance, grace, patience, collaboration, diligence, egalitarianism, social justice, equity, and related terms, into the sandbox. Not included in the building blocks are: war, a priestly cast, diving right of leaders, capricious gods, eternal damnation, sin, victory by the solitary hero, and more. What story new-myth authors come up with is really up to their creative genius. We don’t want to hinder the creative expression, i.e. the aesthetic language, method and experience. We want to constrain the moral principles advocated. This is teleological authoring.

Now let’s take this experiment a little further, not only recruiting an author or two to write the backbone myth, but also recruiting a grammarian — language specialist — who can take some of the key features of the new narrative and construct a new Indo-European language based on it. It should be minimalistic and focused so we don’t get lost in the complexities of aesthetic embellishment. The new language should be close enough to common languages, like English and German, for us to ‘recognize’ the words in some strange way. We should be able to integrate it into our own language. This type of integration, by the way, is normal for language evolution. In sense, we are embedding worldview into language through the association of strong mythic connotations with new words. Like bees carrying pollen, the more these words are embedded in everyday parlance, the more endemic the myth becomes in our cultural sub-consciousness.

This provides existing concepts with a new face and a myth-centric interpretive context that provides cultural cohesion to believers. This is absolutely required for a new myth to take hold and become a new interpretative framework because the new terms will have myth-affinity so important for a worldview to take root in a community.

Our current culture is very diverse, and that is a good thing. When we think back to the time where myths took deep hold in society, the interpretive framework of the myth was everywhere in culture. In other words, the mythic bias was baked into the language, which made it ubiquitous. This is how worldviews won out over the competition. There is a sense where we need a sustainable world view that can win out over the unsustainable competition. The tools of language described here can be brought into the service of that mission.

A key challenge, of course, is not creating a new instance of oppressive monocultures of myth that fossilize arcane and oppressive beliefs over time. This is where the common foundation of ‘sacred’ terms, the ‘toys’ allowed in the proverbial ‘sandbox’, may prove to be a uniting instrument because it allows for a family of myths to flourish, each riffing off a set of common values that constitute a good humanity.

— Roy Zuniga
August 2020
Duvall, WA

Channeling Intent

18 Tuesday Aug 2020

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Christianity, Existentialism, philosophy, Worldview

When we deliberately express intent we are functioning as ‘mind’ for the Universe, which then reacts as ‘muscle’ to produce the desired effect. This is metaphorical, of course. How an individual’s expression of intent causes a response in our world is a mystery. We don’t have language for it. We need a myth to drive home the point, but that’s beyond the scope of this particular post. So let’s try a mundane analogy.

If I wake up on a Sunday and decide to go for a run, my body activates in anticipation without me needing to think about how to give explicit instructions to each muscle. My legs are restless, itching to move, like a dog ready for a walk (your actual experience may vary). Which is different than when I decide to lay in bed watching a morning show.

I’ve found the universe responds to my intent. I won’t get into specific cases here because each can be argued by those looking for a polemic, and it would derail the point intended here, namely, that your worldview shapes what you can wish for.

As we articulate intent, there is a mysterious orchestration that considers other intentions being expressed in our world, and where possible, an alignment is made that enables as many of them to be fulfilled as possible. Yes, it is an ecosystem of intent/fulfillment, and yes, it is amoral in the sense that two contradictory intents can be fulfilled at the same time. Once satisfied, we are personally thankful and move on to the next intent. And so the cycle goes: my ‘mind’ — our collective ‘mind’ — and the ‘muscle’ of the Universe working together. This is a matter of faith: you either believe it or you don’t. Not much you can scientifically prove in these assertions.

Rather than defend them, I’d like to focus on how intent itself is formed. Where does it come from? Why do I spend my energy forming certain intents and not others? Why is it that I can’t desire certain things or behaviors even if rationally I recognize them as laudable, perhaps for someone else. For example, why do so many of us know deep in our hearts that we live an unsustainable consumer lifestyle, but can’t seem to get into the groove of a minimalistic sustainment lifestyle? Why, on the other hand, are third world villagers happy with so little? Many don’t form any intent around the Western consumer lifestyle. Why is that? Isn’t it obvious, we think as Americans, that if you can accumulate stuff, you should? Demand drives supply, and that creates jobs.

I articulate certain intentions because I believe they are the right ones. I have conviction about them. But what does it mean to know what you want? Obviously, you know what you want, and when you want it. You can even rationalize why in terms that fit in your world view. But why is that particular desire there in you, or even in a whole segment of society, so that your desire is normal. But do you really know how that all got there, and what the root cause is that allowed your mind to even conceive of that intent as a desirable outcome?

Let’s assume that intent is essentially a life force that all creatures have. There’s a lot of controversy around the nature of will, and frankly, it’s not something that can be proven one way or the other. Philosophers have recognized intent as a ‘will to life’ (Schoppenhauer), or a ‘will to power’ (Nietsche). Whether it is inherent to us, or ‘the thing in itself’ outside of us (Kant), I’ll leave as a mystery for now. Here I want to focus on the boundaries put on the expression of intent by our worldviews, by the sacred stories we accept and how they frame how we think. If the nature of intent is in the eyes of the philosopher, we can look at behaviors. What is the structure of the expression?

Rainwater flows according to the contours of the landscape. It doesn’t accumulate on hill tops, but rather finds its way through valleys and ravines into rivers and ponds, pulled by gravity. The topology of a landscape dictates likely areas for water to pool.

Think of your worldview as the topology of your mind. Desires flow within predefined channels. Depending on the contours, desires can only accumulate in certain ‘pools’ of intent. For example, if we believe in the progress of history and a heavenly kingdom, we can’t really express intent for reincarnation. On the other hand, if freedom means lack of desire for material comfort, your desires will be for happiness only in the ascetic life. Industrial progress is meaningless, to be loathed.

We can recognize that the formation of specific intents is a function of the mind. To formulate intent, we think in terms of outcomes. Something formed my mind so that desires get channeled in only certain ways. The formative forces molding the topology of our mind are the myths we hold sacred. We’ve become accustomed to thinking about myths as written texts of great import, like the Iliad, Vedic literature, the Talmud, the New Testament, the Koran, etc. In reality, sacred stories evolve and vary as much as language does. Think of all the languages and dialects in the world — that gives you a rough idea of how many myth and myth variations there are. The less codified they are into a holy book like the Bible, the more they vary by region and need.

As Joseph Campbell has pointed out, Myth allows us to talk about topics that language otherwise can’t handle, like the Afterlife. Without creation stories, we could not formulate meta concepts about life after death. Do we go to heaven to be with Jesus, or reincarnate repeatedly until we achieve Nirvana? Sacred stories constrain how believers can think about the answers. Sacred myths open us up to categories of thought and practice we otherwise would not have.

As a young man, a paradigm shift happened when I adopted a new sacred story about God and humanity. I ran across a few Evangelicals who gave me categories of thought for the Holy Spirit, which I then exercised to great effect. I will never forget this spiritual experience. I had been evangelizing and preaching in Northern Ireland, converting people, and we went to a house church in the evening. Believers there were very Charismatic, which means that they believed in the ‘gifts of the Holy Spirit’, and spoke in tongues. They praised God without inhibition and I got so caught up in the euphoria that I felt a rush of freshness pour through me like a waterfall. It was the Spirit of God flowing through me! I was elated and stunned at discovering a dimension of my humanity that I didn’t know existed. The Charismatic worldview allowed for this experience. Without the worldview shift, I would not have formulated such intent, nor experienced the shift in the experience of reality.

If I had bumped into Budhists or some other religion instead of the Evangelicals, and was open to their message, I’d be exercising my spiritual faculties within a different framework and therefore different experiences. In other words, the texts and traditions we adopt as sacred provide us with a framework within which we can exercise our spiritual faculties. It provides a topology for the flow of spiritual intent, and hence the manifestations that can arise from those expressions. The same can be said about the expression of any intent. It is bounded by the channels in our worldview.

To illustrate the point, let’s compare hypothetical expressions of intent based on three philosopher’s worldviews:

A. Schopenhauer: If we think the cycle of will deterministically results in Craving → Fulfillment → Boredom that leads to a pessimistic despair to be escaped only via asceticism, i.e. the renunciation of cravings, then the believer will channel all intent towards one of those ends.
F. Nietzsche: If we believe that personal passionate choice in the service of master morality is the right application of intent, then we’ll work towards the prosperity of those who strive to be ubermensch, and marginalize the existence of a slave class with their despicable slave morality.
S. Kierkegaard: Or we can simply accept Christianity with Jesus as the reference point as he lives in the pages of the Bible, and express our intent as opposition to a lame and self-serving Christendom.

In these examples, the worldview bounds the possibilities of individual intent. Worldviews are shaped by the metanarratives, the collection of stories and myths we hold sacred. The framework of the story we adopt creates the channels for possible action in our mind, deepened by an emotional connection which is the function of empathy for the characters in the myth.

Thus we can affirm that the ‘topology’ shaped in our mind is deterministic of the types of intent that can be expressed. Therefore, great weight and importance must be placed on the sacred narratives. They are our future. We shouldn’t be victims to them, but rather their God, so to speak. We must learn to author them.

The Moses of this world, the Joseph Smiths, the Buddhas and the Mohammeds who invent or otherwise articulate religious worldviews end up creating the channels through which millions will funnel their desires and actions, conceiving and articulating intents that get orchestrated by the Universe into our day-to-day reality. Nietzsche understood this dynamic and created his own sacred text in ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ to help channel how his followers thought about things like eternal recurrence. Our reality is literally shaped by the myth makers.

Thus the creators of the sacred myths wield immense ‘control’ over the future of humanity. Frankly, people can’t live without the stories they hold sacred. How we evolved to be this way is a good question that frankly may never be answered. Some say we are hard-wired for language. Perhaps we are hard-wired for myth as well. In any case, this is how we articulate intent. If we passively accept worldviews that preempt certain necessary outcomes, then we seal our own doom. We have a moral obligation to take control of the myth-making process to preclude unsustainable behaviors, and predispose those that are.

This is easier said than done. We all know that people groups with sustainable behaviors can’t defend themselves against the onslaught of militarized consumerism. Nor do we necessarily want to bring back old myths we find archaic and even insulting to science. The evangelical experience also teaches us that blanket conversion of entire populations is unrealistic. Whatever the answer is, we have to try knowing that myth-authoring and dissemination plays a central role.

— Roy Zuniga
August 2020
Duvall, WA

The Divine Right of Christ

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by royzuniga in art, mythology

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Christianity, faith, monolithic religions, Story telling

Who gave Christ his divine right? Was it not theologians? As understood by Christians, we didn’t have a visit from the Father to explain things to us for all to see because by definition he can’t visit us or related to us. He’s wholly Other, he’s omnipresent and omniscient. Therefore, He had to send an intermediary, his very own son, the Christ, begotten but not created, to be human and to dwell among us, to experience and suffer our frailty and victimhood, so that through our ultimate rejection of Him, his corresponding sacrifice, God the Father could exercise forgiveness to the repentant, to those who understand they are sinful. The murder of Christ was the rejection of the Father God and as such the ultimate rebellion. In his infinite Love and Grace, however, by allowing the death of his Son and then demonstrating resurrecting power, the Father provided a path towards reconciliation because ultimately, we are all his children. Like Christ, we will also all be with Him in the heavenly, physical dwelling, someday. If we believe.

By now this is an old story that has not been allowed to evolve fundamentally. Why? Because of the canon of narratives, the Bible had to be locked to support the theology of the church. Without that lock that is the Bible, the myths told would naturally evolve, as they do outside of the monolithic religions (which I’ll just call ‘monoliths’ for the purpose of brevity and metaphor).

In the study the African or Polynesian myths, and you can hear how the stories are fluid, with particular emphasis on this or that god, and this or that behavior of that god, changes by location and time in response to the needs of the peoples and the influence of other myths. Selection and articulation of myth are guided by the intent of the population. For example, trickster gods (and by inference trickster men) come to be expected in Africa, and this is reinforced by the myths.

Such fluidity is the enemy of theology, which needs to lock down the protagonists and their essential nature. In classical Christianity, we have the Trinity and other doctrines defined by conventions and councils with great seriousness. Yet over time, cultural currents inevitably erode the pillars of theology, which must be constantly reinforced. Maintaining the edifice of theology is a full-time job for many, and thus a livelihood. It’s easy to see how those invested in the institution of doctrines will consciously or subconsciously reinforce that institution. Given that humans love conflict and battle, staging conflict should be part of the business model. Intellectual wrestling, even about godly topics, is conflict.

Christianity wants the monuments of the ‘false gods’ to erode and wither in order to replace them. By way of comparison, monolithic soccer would replace monolithic football if given a chance. To theologians of any given monolith, Christianity can’t just be ‘another sport’, so to speak. Key differentiators must be found – the ‘us vs. them’ distinctions – because without them religions would be moral equivalents. When salvation is put forth as the ultimate purpose of religion – and thus is in turn required by the exclusivity of the chosen savior – then only one religion must survive. Denying that means denying the exclusive nature of their message, i.e the reason the religion exists.

Once asserted, the exclusivity principle must be upheld at all costs. It can be made more palatable through syncretism, there can be overtures of tolerance and loosening up of the rules of behavior that pass for doctrine (can gays be married? etc.) or the norms that seem anachronistic (can only men be priests?). Despite this tug of war within the camp, the lynchpin that can’t be pulled is the exclusivity of the means of salvation. Without it, there is no monolithic religion. By definition, therefore, the need for salvation must be established. In this light, a mechanism for salvation is an assumption. It’s the defining characteristic of religion, i.e. a well-defined and achievable path to life with God. Faithful fans will argue about rules and uniforms, but denying the need for winners and losers in eternity would nullify their own investment. Like sports, the monoliths are a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Thus, for Christians to be on the winning side is to have a single Omni-god (with a diversity of attributes), and not a pantheon. We could ask about the merits of one vs. many, but that would be sacrilege. It is, however, an irresistible digression. Is it really easier to discuss the wrath of the one Righteous God, the mercy of the same Forgiving God and the regeneration of Christ the Redeemer than to just have a separate god for each aspect? One with many attributes or many with single attributes could be argued to be functional equivalents. Mars, Venus, Mercury, etc. Perhaps the universality of these attributes is why harmonization across Roman and Greek, Greek and Egyptian gods is possible to some extent. We’ll have to leave those questions for now. God archetypes is a curiosity to be explored on another day.

The real point of these distinctions is not to come out with an understanding of the true monolithic religion as if the choice was between the One God and one of the god sets. We’re blind sighted by that polemic. It’s a diversion. The fight for ultimacy sucks all the energy out of the earnest and faithful, who don’t realize they can take control of their own stories. Minds shaped by religious wars can’t think creatively.

Ideally, story evolution would be nurtured. We can see this in the ‘apostate’ creative hive that is Hollywood. Characters from the Greek pantheon are evolved – like Thor. New ones have been added, like Wonder woman, whose backstory is tied to the ancient myth of the Amazon women. How fun! Moviegoers don’t take offense at the evolution of the stories because that’s what they want: change, creativity, new ways of expressing the values they cherish. Superhero movie making is picking and reinforcing new values, programming a new generation in new behaviors that are important. We can learn from the craft of screenwriting, which has matured to recognize the response of a protagonist in the face of challenges to their driving intentions defines the strength of their character. The cycle of the Hero’s Journey has gone mainstream. Thus, powerful and buff kick-ass women are a new standard set by feminist producers who are tired of the old sexist stereotypes. These views will themselves evolve over time, as Men respond to defend their right to act on their testosterone levels. The ebb and flow of emphasis in stories are natural. Superhero agendas of today will also pass.

Theology and mythology are at odds. Theology needs an assertion of exclusivity to be realized. A hero must be picked as the Anointed One, the one whose journey exemplifies key learnings and behaviors, one with whom we can empathize, and thereby internalize their values, behaviors, and responses to circumstances.

To see the religious ecosystem for what it is, one must step back. It helps to question the assumptions (as I have done elsewhere in the dynomyth.net blog posts). For example, does ‘hell’ make sense, how do we know Christ himself wasn’t deceived and later impersonated by higher beings who are gaslighting us like our own public ‘servants’ do (the so-called ‘n-level problem’), etc. Above and beyond the criticism, it is helpful to have an alternative paradigm, and that’s where intention-based belief comes into play. A benefit of coming out of theological controversies is that you become familiar with some of the key questions, like pre-determination vs. free will. These are real struggles for many of the faithful.

How to know the will of God? To what extent can I mold my own destiny? Put simply, intent-based faith assumes there is an ‘orchestration engine’ out there – call it God, call it the Universe, call it what you will. We don’t know it directly like we know a person. There is no objective incarnation. The Universe doesn’t have an avatar to talk with us, although certainly through stories we can invent one. We just accept it exists. I gave it a name, Uranthom, for expediency (it should be in the dictionary). You can call it what you will.

The model is simple. As individual articulates and expresses his or her own intentions, without assuming they know how they will be realized. This articulation is otherwise known as prayer. Uranthom then takes over. Over time, if there is enough alignment on intentions, the intent will be realized in ways that are both directly related to the original intention but at the same time, surprising. This is why it is important to separate intent from a specific prejudice for its realization, otherwise, you might be disappointed. This is analogous to God’s sovereignty in religion – you don’t always get what you want in the way you want it. It also explains free will because you get to pick your intentions. Uranthom’s effects could be interpreted as the actions of a loving, personal god (especially if you already created a divine personality).

Moreover, there’s a greater chance of having your intent realized if you get other people to align the intent (which is analogous to group prayer). What better way to do this than via story-telling. Are you passionate about your intent? Then get creative. Write a story, make a play, create a movie and get it distributed. This exercises the mind and energy of the faithful, who are no longer spectators and mere financial supporters.

Without story, theology has no legs. Theological concepts are abstractions most of the faithful don’t care about. So, stories have to be created to tie it all in. Biblical stories, which were originally created by the people, have been appropriated as canon and are now the top-down delivery mechanism that sustains theology. Clergy of the past did pick some good stories, stories that people can empathize with and learn behaviors from. The interpretation of which has been self-serving to the ecosystem. It doesn’t have to be.

The natural course of myth-making based on a people’s intent denies the divine right of Christ to rule over our thoughts in decision-making. Story making is a fundamental act of rebellion against monolithic religions, and the affirmation that your intent – and especially the community’s intent – is what matters. Hasn’t it always been that way? We pick an existing religion that aligns with our intent. That act of choice proves we pick our own flavor of the One Way. Let’s just acknowledge the dependency of sacred stories to our personal intents, roll with it and get creative. Start influencing.

— Roy Zuniga

Campeche, Brazil
December 2017

The Space God

23 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by royzuniga in mythology, Uncategorized, Worldview

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Greek gods, Olympian Gods, proselytizing

Ancient gods were physical, and as such, constrained. If not exactly human, they did have boundaries to their existence. They operated in realms. Athena was the goddess of Athens. Delphi had an oracle, etc. Now over time as enterprising peoples tried to extend their influence, it made sense to have the dominion of their Gods extend as well, which meant they had to go up. Mount Olympus, said to be the home of the 12 Greek gods of the pantheon, was the highest peak in Greece at 9,500 ft. Likewise, Moses ascended Mount Sinai, at 7,500 ft. the highest peak in the area. There is a strong correlation between claims of hegemony and the height from which their gods operate. When a mountain was no longer tall enough it seems, the notion of heaven was assumed. This is coincidental with the notion of exclusivity of God.

Early on, the Hebrews did not deny the existence of other gods even as they admonished adherents to ‘not have any other gods’ before their own. Their thinking evolved from henotheism (preferring one god among several) to monotheism (there is only one true god). I call the latter the ‘space God’. This is not to make fun but rather to help you imagine where the ultimate physical god has to dwell. A constrained physical God in outer space won’t actually see very much. How can He actually know everything?

Physical gods are by definition bounded. To extend the dominon of a nation, therefore, the bounds of your God have to be extended. Thus, the association of the constrained God being integrated with the unbounded members of the Trinity, i.e. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, mitigates these limitations. This is a brilliant theology that introduces mysterious dimensions to inspire respect in the ‘otherness’ of God. Being watched over by a Jealous, Righteous and Just God necessarily introduces a sense of dread in the faithful. Dread validates the existence of an omniscient deity, which motivates the subordination of others, and so the myth feeds on itself. While cogent and historically persistent, this explanation does nothing to solve the problem of coexistence in an ever more heterogeneous population with the diversity of beliefs.

Monotheism is necessarily tied up with territorial favoritism. To Americans, to be Christian means being bounded by the domains of America. We have to start recognizing this as theocratic imperialism. It is the extension of the bounds of the Christian God to cover other lands at the expense of local gods. If this sounds obvious, stop to ask yourself if you can extract the God from the locale. I don’t mean the metaphysical God behind Jesus. Rather, can you remove notions of geography, whether it is ‘the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’, or ‘the land of the free’ from the evangelical message? I don’t think you can. In fact, built into ‘the Great Commission’, i.e. Jesus’ directive to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel’, is necessarily a geographical expansionist mindset. It means ‘propagate Christ-god to all geographies’. Sounds like standard missionary work, doesn’t it? What is the problem, you ask? Why is this intolerant?

My point is not self-evident. Let me add some contrast to the belief in domain-exclusive gods (and I will try to be succinct for the sake of impact). Imagine, for a moment, that belief has everything to do with a locale but nothing to do with a specific god like Apollo, Osiris or Jesus having to necessarily be in that locale. Assume that all cultures have mythologies that communicate worldview via stories, which in turn exemplify desired behaviors. In this chain of belief, we have a cosmology, shared values and desired outcomes.

Now work backward from this: what are the scalable outcomes desired? The values required to support them? Based on this, create the supporting scared stories (or mythology). From this perspective, you see, you cannot take heroes or gods to be literally physical, but you can experience them in the imagination. They are a metaphor and as such, there is no competition across geographies implied. Proselytizing is not a zero-sum game in the naming of your God(s).

The competition will be in the domain of values and behaviors. If there are conflicts, the resolution is a dialog about the behaviors and values themselves and how they can be adjusted to allow for co-existence. It is hard to imagine a ‘religious’ value in this context that cannot be accommodated for the sake of loving your neighbor. Stories are then revised as a response to the accommodation, and cultures can move on from anachronistic stories that no longer serve the purpose. In other words, the outcome justifies the narrative, not the other way around. In this model, you may have very different gods ‘existing’ in the minds of the believers without having to be territorial about it. Because belief is what motivates people to act, there is a very real impact via the outcomes. 521 Main Street can believe in one God, while 523 believes in another god. Compatibility of values will make the coexistence of the gods voluntary. These are the gods of Main Street, not outer space.

— Roy Zuniga
Redmond, WA
July 2017

An Ontology

16 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by royzuniga in mythology, Uncategorized, Worldview

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aesthetics, ontology, philosophy of art, Uranthom

Intro

Why talk about the ontology of art when such high-minded thoughts are a distraction to creating art work? The simple answer is that, with limited time left on earth, I want to create meaningful works. This begs the question of what makes great art. I’ve asserted elsewhere that it is the sense of presence in the works. Here I will expand on that, striving to understand what draws us into the works existentially.

Before I start, I should articulate a disclaimer about the scope of my assertions. Using a big word like ‘Ontology’ is risky because immediately your position is compared with the long history on the topic that includes the greatest minds since Socrates. What you’ll find here is a layman’s musings about being. Not only do I not have the training or time to be a scholar, I also don’t want to invest much life energy into exploring all the rabbit trails in the history of philosophy. I have too many works of art that are languishing unfinished as it is.

Moreover, it is my belief that an understanding of what causes a masterpiece to exist should be understandable by the common person. It should be more accessible, like a catechism or the stories of mythology, than like the polemics of a Princeton or Oxford.

Another reason to be humble about assertions of being is what I’ve called elsewhere ‘the n-level problem’. This was noted when I recounted my exit from Christianity. You see, even if we could assert that wounds St. Thomas touched were, in fact, those of a resurrected Christ, the very fact that Christ could be resurrected makes any other supernatural phenomena possible, such that Christ himself could have been impersonated, used or deceived by a higher power. Likewise, angelic beings might have indeed appeared to Mary and the Shepherds and said what is asserted they said. There is no way to guarantee, however, that those beings weren’t on some drunken hazing exercise to play games with humans, the way the Greek gods mucked around with them.

Once you assert higher beings who can read our thoughts, be teleported, raised from the dead, transmuted, etc. there’s no way to morally qualify them, or distinguish the good from the bad. The earth gods might have been played for fools by higher beings, just like they play with humans. Thus, if you assert the possibility of miracles and higher beings, you are also picking a side by your own faith alone. It is necessarily a personal choice, just like you chose which church to attend.

The same principle applies not only to assertions about god(s) but also to assertions about our own being. It is conceivable that genetic engineers can create a new form of life and introduce that into a laboratory experiment where existing forms of life encounter it. These creatures do not have the cognitive capacity to understand that the new creature was introduced by man. They might be so primitive as to not have senses, like eyes, for example, to detect the presence of observers. They have sensors of various types that enable them to survive. The natural, i.e. non-manmade creatures must figure out whether the new arrivals are friend or foe, etc. Let’s assume in the end they all get along, and the new creatures coexist with the old. That is, the natural creatures have no notion that the new fellas are synthetic, and the synthetic ones were engineered to not know or care about their origins.

If we cannot deny the possibility of such a hybrid experiment, who can categorically affirm that we ourselves are not the subjects of an analogous experiment by higher beings we can’t detect? We might lack the faculties to see higher beings that could, hypothetically, be engineering our own existence to watch and learn what happens.

Why is it, for example, that we are wired for story? All cultures use mythology, even in secular sectors, to drive behavior. The story ‘interface’ to our minds and psyches can be used periodically to ‘program’ entire populations and thus steer history, as evident in the construction of pyramids or the Third Reich. Stories to humans are like so much sugar water stimulating populations of slimy creatures to act.

So rather than explain Being as something integral, as an object that can be described, I’d rather describe a phenomenology of interactions between higher and lower beings to the extent they can be experienced. I look at the interaction between creator and created, and as we’ll see below, between artist and his work.

By phenomena I mean interactions like prayer. I’ve covered interaction with ‘the Universe’ previously with the notion of Uranthom, so I won’t revisit it now. Here, we’ll look at ourselves as the higher beings in relation to our creations, one of which is art. Certain art has ontological standing in relation to both the creator and the observers. While the principles may apply to other domains, in what follows, I’m thinking of paintings specifically, not sculpture or art installations.

The Existence of Art

What if Van Gogh had the idea for Starry Night but never executed on it, would the art exist? Of course not, because with art the idea is not complete until it is realized, and the realization necessarily evolves the idea further.

Neither is a work masterful until it has a presence when observed. By presence I mean the sense the viewer has, when in front of certain masterworks, that they are having an encounter with a personality or domain that is ‘other’ than the physical place they are standing in. For example, standing in front of a Rembrandt portrait at a museum, I had the distinct impression I was encountering a being from another place and time who ‘spoke’ to me in ways that cannot be fully articulated. It’s true that powerful 3D movie on a big screen may have an immersive effect of presence also, so I’m not disparaging other types of art. I’ll stick with the domain of paintings here.

What makes one work have that state or being that others do not have? To me, Van Gogh’s art is more powerful than Gauguin’s. Why? Gauguin is telling a story of a journey, provoking viewers with colorful figures that ask questions. These figures are like mythical characters, like those in Aesop’s fables. Van Gogh, on the other hand, just recognizes a certain existence in his subjects that comes from deep empathy. He lived with coal miners, he took care of the destitute, he was passionate about people. Gauguin cared mostly about himself, abandoning people – even his wife and kids – in the pursuit of art. The difference comes across. Gauguin is more calculated and cerebral it seems to me.

Van Gogh’s emotion came from a real connectedness, one that in some ways was fully consummated by him as he faced rejection. Like the isolated Michelangelo painting his marvelous nudes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, art became an alternate reality Van Gogh could immerse himself in. His passion is evident in his brush work. It is not representation, but action, a visual assertion of life and existence. This comes from someone who had been fired as a minister of Jesus for being too close to the poor. Van Gogh lived among them, in a miner’s shack.

To paint like Van Gogh is to express the essentials of being. The vocabulary is vibrant and simple. We have to empathize at an existential level. We are not thinking about answering specific philosophical questions about, for example, where we come from or where we are going (as with Gauguin’s work). In Van Gogh’s work, we are present with no strings attached. There is an inevitability about viewing his works that is disarming, that draws you into his intensity.

Great art does that. It draws us into a presence that otherwise would not be experienced at that place. Put a cover over the art, and that presence is gone. This the alchemy of aesthetic moments, where everyday experience becomes extraordinary. To me, these works have a type of existence.

Art facilitates an experience that is not necessarily reproducible by making more of its kind but rather is always recognizable in the masterful instance. You cannot paint as Van Gogh did, with his colors, brush strokes, motives, etc. and necessarily have, at the end of the effort, a masterwork. In other words, the essence of great art is not in the materials or the technique, although these are necessary elements to the masterful whole. There also has to be an audience to experience the presence.

If an instance (even if the very first instance) of a painting in a style can be more masterful than others in that genre, it only follows that someone may later produce another piece of even greater quality. If by the application of fresh colors in a superlative execution an expert managed to surpass a Van Gogh with a work in his style, then the Van Gogh would be diminished regardless of being the inventor of the style. This is like the young Leonardo surpassing Verrocchio with the painting of an angel in a single collaborative work.

Of course, for collectors who know Van Gogh, a work by the master’s hand would have more value just because Van Gogh painted it. In other words, they are assigning value to authorship. This valuation criterion is external to the work and the pure artistic experience the viewer may have with it. I don’t count knowledge of authorship as a distinguishing characteristic of masterpieces. Artistic ‘parentage’, if we can call it that, is interesting information, but in a strict sense, not part of the being of the work as we’re calling it out here, i.e. that spark between the viewer and the work we call presence.

One could argue that Van Gogh enthusiasts can’t really separate the experience from the knowledge of the authorship. Let’s say, however, a previously unknown Van Gogh is found and is then copied with such superlative execution that the result is a better Van Gogh than what he himself originally painted. Maybe the original was a misfire, a good idea painted on a bad day for Van Gogh. And let’s say the impersonating artist actually pulls it off so well, that there is an experience of presence of the same quality as to be had with Van Gogh’s other works. If the experience is there, it must be recognized as such, apart from knowledge of the hand who made it.

Thus, because it is conceivable that someone could paint a more impactful and better-executed version of the masterpiece, we can assert that the essential idea of a great work, while not available to experience apart from an execution, nevertheless exists apart from a specific execution, as it did in the mind of Vincent, when he decided to paint it. Moreover, a work can exist in more than one execution, as in Velazquez’ multiple copies of the portrait of Don Luis de Gongora. When a concept instantiated multiple times in high quality, no one instance can be said to be less real than the other. In other words, the masterwork is co-dependent with at least one execution, and not restricted to a given instance.

Likewise, we don’t know who really initiated what is known as The Iliad and The Odyssey. These works were transmitted orally over many years, so that the version we know today may have been honed by many authors in the retelling. Nevertheless, the work has an existence beyond the vagaries of specific words that changed from one recounting to another.

Beyond the idea and its execution, it would all be for naught if there wasn’t an appreciative audience. If the rest of humanity disappeared and a tribe happens to eventually wander into the ruins of Amsterdam, and they valued a shapely designer garbage container more than Van Gogh paintings in the museum, would the paintings cease to be masterpieces? To the natives, the answer would seem obvious: the garbage container is much more useful. Experience is necessarily part of the presence of the work, so that the existence of a masterpiece cannot be independent, but is rather relative to its visibility in the culture. Adherents of ISIS had no problem destroying ancient Assyrian bulls and other artifacts because to them, they were no more valuable than a garbage can is to us. Yet somehow over the span of history, we must affirm that artifacts that were masterpieces to ancient cultures are worthy of protection.

So far, most of this seems obvious. There seems to be a synergy between the idea and the realization, each of which is not complete without the other. The idea necessarily came before the execution, was then modified by it, and can, in turn, inspire additional ideas for execution. If there is continuity of being between us and the rest of creation, is there some parallelism we can draw out of the ‘masterpiece’ ontology of art for the sake of understanding human experience. It seems to me that the three factors elucidated above, i.e. the idea, the execution and the acceptance, also apply to people.

Perhaps God cannot know us apart from the instances of people in the community. The idea, or better said, the ‘hunch’ of a person in the mind of God, is not the person. The struggle to produce a masterpiece person and community is evident in the ambitions of civilization and may be a categorical imperative. The driving force behind humanity’s continual self-realization towards excellence maps to the ‘mind of the artist’ so to speak, of him or herself being realized through excellence. Realizing this elevated intention without hindering others can be considered the moral life. We have to be careful because our the collective choices of intent determine the reality orchestrated. Moreover, if the execution impacts the idea, then we are shaping the mind of God, such that it cannot exist apart from creation, nor can He/She.

— Roy Zuniga
Langley, WA
July 16, 2017

A Universal Process for a Personal Worldview

02 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by royzuniga in art, mythology, Uncategorized, Worldview

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art, Community, community mythology, faith, intent, intention, Jesus, mythology, religion, Worldview

My worldview guides me, as does yours. I believe in expressing intent as the basis for experience. This world view is also a process that can be applied by everyone. The key is to let ‘the Universe’ have its say in how our intent is fulfilled, considering the intent of others in our domain, and trusting that a suitable outcome will be orchestrated. This is fundamentally a positive outlook. It is also simple. The goal is to have humanity spend less time rationalizing manmade theological problems, and more time actually experiencing life. Nature is in danger from those who don’t know her, who don’t know how connected they really are to her.

I am approaching topics of ultimacy from the personal experience of what works. Praying to Uranthom works for me. Reflexive prayer, i.e. the notion that all spoken prayer for our own benefit, reinforces my intent. Understanding self is so important because being aligned with what makes you tick is the best possible experience for you as an existential ‘node’ in this collective and connected existence. If physical creatures can achieve a ‘heavenly’ experience on earth, why look forward to a non-corporeal existence? Consciousness without physicality is a hell. Whether our souls go to ‘Heaven’ or blend back into a mystical cosmic consciousness, I do not know. I am confident that the Universe that makes Uranthom possible will have a suitable resolution of my consciousness existence.

We get into trouble when we make ‘authoritative’ and exclusive assertions about God the way both Muslim and Christian theologians have over the ages. Conflict arises when the respective believers take the God-speculation literally and defend mutually exclusive absolutes. The line of thought that tries to define God is a dead end. We can be believers without absolutes. In this mode, all world views are necessarily individualistic, which is what I think happens anyway, even to those who believe in the ‘heaven first’ approach where guidance comes down from God.

If you find your mind caught in a web of theological conundrums, it may be helpful to trace back the chain of ideas that led to your beliefs. I did, and it led me to start fresh, from scratch. What kind of conundrums? For example, conflicting ideas about free will vs. predestination; obsession with a physical God who cannot be touched; someone we talk to but who never talks back. Reconciling undeserved mishaps and tragedies with God’s good purpose for pious people. Talking about both love and eternal punishment in the same conversation. Advocating the never-ending exploitation of a finite earth. Advocating equality of genders while keeping the man as the ‘head.’ Preaching compassion and acceptance while attributing people’s sicknesses and disabilities to sin or laziness. Teaching forgiveness while always finding an enemy to fight. Asserting world peace is on the other side of a war. Thinking like this is making our planet sicker, and we need to change it.

Trace the origin any one of these ideas and you find they go far back, some thousands of years. The writers we read were influenced by ideas they might not properly credit. The Christian worldview goes back to the Greek philosophers, the Stoics, Christianity, kings since Charlemagne who believed in the divine right, the Protestant Reformers, and American conservatism. For example, we celebrate Easter because it recalls Christ’s death and resurrection. Why did He have to die? Shed blood was the atonement for sin. Why can blood atone? Because of pagan beliefs that God(s) demand it for transgression, and to earn favor. Why did Christ specifically have to die? Because he is God incarnate, and as such can atone all of humankind. Why does God have to be incarnate? Because of the theological tradition that requires God to be involved in human affairs, and the certainty that God(s) have to exist somewhere physically, like the Greek pantheon on Olympus. Change your worldview, and you change your destiny.

The tumor of over analyzed worldview tends to grow bigger as each generation tries to sort out one conundrum or the other, resulting in more spaghetti theology. Topics like ‘how do I stay out of hell?’ and other questions become irrelevant. That is all a huge distraction that myopic and weak-willed theologians debate ad-infinitum. Like addicts, they can no longer recognize the simple life and how good it can be. To those invested with years of study of treatises and intellectual traditions, real happiness and peace are a sign of apathy! They can not recognize a completed human being if she was sitting next to them in Sunday morning pew because such people are only expected in heaven. We could play their game and argue with every position that has been taken since Socrates. I do not have the life-energy to do that. Theology for its own sake only produces secure employment for professional mental wrestlers. We have to keep it simple. We can just snip that chain of beliefs at the source, let the weight of conundrums fall to the floor. Life goes on, and we can experiment with alternate foundational principles.

The fundamental worldview question we have to answer is ‘how should we live?’ I have arrived, for now, at a process build on existence as an experience of intent. Intent is simply an affirmation of the desired outcome. This is just a hunch, but so far, it is working for me, manifesting peace of mind and a good life. Note that intent is not the same as will. To will something implies a certain coercion, even if it is your own actions, which is a more aggressive stance that may in fact work against you.

Intent is a passive internal assertion that can be either be silent or can also be reinforced through vocalization, by saying it aloud (as in prayer). Lack of vocalization does not diminish the power of the intent. The ‘Universe’ realizes your intent based on an orchestration process that is opaque to us. I do not see the value of postulating what ‘God’ or ‘the Universe’ thinks and does since by definition it is beyond our grasp. This is why I invented the notion of Uranthom, which is my abstraction layer to what happens ‘out there’.

We express intent many times a day, thinking ‘yes I want a new shirt’, or ‘we pray for a new school for those missionaries, amen!’, or ‘I’d like to sleep in this morning’, or ‘I’d like to be paired with a woman (or man) like that’, or ‘my energy is better spent painting’, for example. We often try to execute on the intent, and this is where we should rather pause and listen to the Universe. Mindfulness is important before taking action, as is patience. I call it ‘manifesting’, which simply means that given some time for processing, those outcomes you intend will be orchestrated along with the intent of others for a more satisfactory resolution. It may not be exactly what you had in mind to start, but examining those desires in light of the outcomes, you will find a good state, one, which inevitably leads to new intent. Thus life evolves in a dialectic with Uranthom, the receptor of our expressions of intent.

If you have a communal intent, like ‘I wish to go to the ball game with my friends’, or ‘we need supporters to donate money to pay for fuel for the ship’, then expressing it helps align the intent of others. The expression can be a post on social media or a prayer in church. Because intent is bubbling up regardless of whether you are in a religious house or not, we do not distinguish between prayer and other expressions of intent. Intent that aligns with that of others is more likely to be realized. This is a driver for social awareness and political action, because, without the expression of an alignment on values, we are not likely to get our way.

Happiness comes from a realization that as you let go, and the manifestations are real, you stop being frustrated about what happens (or doesn’t happen), and start being present to recognize and enjoy goodness. This is parity for the assurance religious people feel when they believe ‘it’s all in God’s hands’. This mindset does not come overnight, especially if you are mired in the conundrums your ancestors fed you with our mother’s milk. Intent that aligns with that of others is more likely to be realized. As is intent that aligns with the progression of the Universe towards harmony, (this assertion, by the way, is an expression of my own intent). If we all share that intent, it will be. The simplicity of the model is the conscious expression (internal or external) of your intent, coupled with a letting go so ‘the Universe’ can manifest that intent.

This all sounds so simple and even mystical. What about all those conundrums that theologians and philosophers have spent lifetimes debating. Are we going to address those questions? I believe a lot of it gets sorted out on its own when you pivot on intent. For example, we don’t have to account for an all knowing God, since ‘God’ knows through our experience. I don’t believe in a God object, a person-like entity who somehow both sits on a throne and at the same time knows everything everywhere and has all power as Christian doctrine affirms. God may, in fact, have some of those attributes, but it is in a distributed fashion.

It is my hunch – and you don’t have to believe this, it’s just my way of dealing with categories of thought that need an accounting – that the ‘the Universe’ achieves omnipresence and omniscience through physical instances of people and other creatures who are embedded within it. ‘Creation’ is a mechanism for self-discovery. Good and evil are really just relative ideas based on the quality of the outcome of intent. Suffering is not a consequence of sin, but rather a consequence of intent and actions that don’t align with a viable existence. Mistaken experiments fail, people learn and change their intent. Look at the Chinese stance towards pollution. They have gone from not caring about it to engineering forest cities. We just have to learn from misguided policies, improve, and move onward towards a healthy expression of a society that doesn’t leave people behind.

Predestination is a moot point, since you are the agent of destiny, if you intend it, it was meant to be. As you realize it, it is also known. As the universe experiences and understands itself through each one of us, this universal consciousness grows. As we expand our experience, we expand the instantiation of knowledge of that area. And we move on. Now don’t ask me about the mechanics of all this. It’s just a myth that helps me explain things I don’t understand, as all good myths do. All this assumes positive intent and has yet to be proven. What will be the intent that wins out in an over-populated world?

Now don’t ask me about the mechanics of all this. It’s just a myth that helps me explain things I don’t understand, as all good myths do. All this assumes positive intent and has yet to be ultimately proven good by humanity. What intent will win out in an over-populated world?

Since you are so important in this whole evolutionary process, it is important to understand the criteria by which you affirm intent. This is the domain of values. Decisions are based on what you consider worthwhile. Some of these are instinctual and innate. We naturally want intimacy or a fun night out with the guys (or gals). We dote on our children by nature. Some behaviors are learned. We defer to elders, distrust strangers or hate to accept help from others. Some values are ideological, such as patriotism and loyalty to a class structure.

Good values come from a common humanity. Despite all the theological conundrums, good values undergird every major religion and provide the redemptive glue that gives them longevity. This is where ‘culture forming’ or ‘cultural engineering’ come into play. What you call it depends on your temperament, but the gist is the same: we understand the dynamics of how humans internalize worldviews, i.e. through prevalent myths, which program the depths of the mind that impact the process and scope of decision making. The arts define these myths, and thus through art, we can change the operating system of the psyche.

As I’ve written elsewhere, Community Mythology is a technique that uses the arts to ‘craft’ a world view into a culture. The idea is that we collectively agree on the set of behaviors, and their underlying values, our common humanity, as colored by the experience of mistaken communities of the past (such as the Nazi experiment). A group comes to mythic awareness by recognizing when cultural artifacts, such as movies, advertising, and political rhetoric are impacting their value system. Awareness is the pre-requisite to a conscious decision process, a kind of ‘pre-qualification’ of the values we let into our intentional decision making. Allowing certain values into our lives is itself an intent.

Make no mistake about it, this a powerful ideological cocktail. The power of the Universe is harnessed with intent, and intent shapes its destiny with humans. Mis-guided collective intent results in ‘evil’, and people consequently suffer. Properly guided intent results in goodness for all those involved. Based on values we deem to be sacred, we have to express our intent, and then, as the saying goes, let go ‘and let God’.

— Roy Zuniga
Langley, WA

Why Heroes?

11 Sunday Jun 2017

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Many cultures can look back at a ‘heroic age’ where Gods and men interacted directly. The Homeric Iliad tells of encounters between capricious Gods and sailors on epic journeys. The Egyptians and the Hebrews likewise recounted the meddling of Gods in everyday human events. These are ages in the imagination of a culture when the normal rules do not apply.

When ‘normal’ rules apply and the Gods don’t mess with us directly, people still look to influence events with their help. Especially when society gets too corrupt, we long for the heroes who can work their super powers and set things right. On rare occasions, someone comes along to whom the normal rules don’t apply, like Jesus who came millennia after Zeus stopped sleeping with women. But Jesus’ age of miracles is also now past.

If they no longer care enough to touch us, we should ask ‘why do we need heroes?’ Now that men and women don’t interact directly with God(s), why do we then pray to them? What is this hopeless optimism that enables us to believe?

In other posts, we’ve explored the dynamics of myth in relation to:

Explanations for what is not yet understood, like the creation myth accounting for life on earth.
A justification for domination, like a king or emperor claiming ancestral descent from a God in order to shore up his claim to power.
A mechanism for a community to internalize shared values through stories.

What we still need to explore is the need to have a mythical hero ‘pull strings’ with God to influence current events on our behalf. This faith comes in part from experience. Many of us (myself included) have experienced answers to prayer. Is there something in the expectation of an effect that perhaps impacts the actual outcome?

We’ve all seen believer remain faithful even if things don’t go exactly her way. For the believer, the very expression of intent through prayer impacts the perception of the outcome:

If the outcome was inevitable, there is submission to God.
If the outcome goes against our intent or prayer, we look for a lesson because God knows better and he loves us.
If the outcome is in our favor, we remember it especially well and tell others.

So regardless of the true outcome, it seems that formalizing an intent through prayer gets the issue tracked, and the results are parsed according to the rules of the world view. Thus, religion is reinforced even if someone who never prays gets a similar experience.

There is a fundamental positive belief about the dynamics of faith: we smile at the universe believing it will smile back (eventually). Hope is not rational, but it makes us feel better because we’re not alone in the universe. This triggers more confident action. Belief makes the world go ‘round. From the diminutive turtle hatchling scrambling out of a sandy nest, sniffing for the ocean, to the college student cramming for tomorrow’s critical exam, belief in the movement towards a more agreeable existence is the driving force of life.

Thus, hero myths are a mechanism for internalizing the direction we want to take. They need to come from an age of heroes that is culturally accepted in order to give such talk legitimacy. We’re hopelessly optimistic about good things happening. We assume, of course, that prosperity is possible. However, what happens when things can only get worse when overpopulation restricts cramps our expansionism, when it’s no longer possible to breathe air that is as clean as what our parents had? How do we then pray in a world where prosperity is a zero-sum game? When consuming means being cruel to other life on earth?

Some will get irrational and look towards a prosperous future on Mars, even though that option is generations away. Others simply stop being optimistic. Lack of faith only results in a depressive, lethargic, living death. Others will rationalize prosperity as something internal, as a spiritual journey that doesn’t need stuff. If we don’t check out of life, we must believe in something positive, and mythical heroes are there to help.

— Roy Zuniga
Langley, WA

Abstracting en Plein Air

29 Monday May 2017

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Recently I challenged myself to invent a visual language while painting on the field, and the effect on my mind was startling. The process got me thinking about the inception of art movements. How exactly did rogue painters of the past invent a new movement in art? For one thing, they willingly created a new language of artistic expression. What aspects of a new visual language makes it successful? Obviously, it has to draw you in. Beyond that, as we’ll see below, the motif must be recognizable and express the specific as something universal.

This week, for the first time, I painted an abstract landscape in real time outdoors instead of working from photos back at the studio. ‘Abstractscape’ is a term I coined for abstract landscapes, like the ones shown here painted in the studio.

Lake Pearrygin

Abstractscape 2

I had leveraged photographs as inspiration for abstract paintings like ‘Lake Pearrygin’ and ‘Abstractscape 2’.

While the process of imagining colors for a painting is commonplace, it usually doesn’t happen outdoors in a ‘realist’ painting scenario. There, in the field working directly from nature and deliberately using radically different colors, I experienced the ‘language shift’. This was a big step for me because so far, all my Plein Air work has been predictably realistic. You observe, correlate to a color, simplify the form, and try to give the impression of what you are looking at.

Having been inspired by Van Gogh, who created art outdoors, I added an emotive filter to my own rendering by changing colors dramatically. Brushwork does of course also enhance the message, but this was nothing new. What became more important is the range of colors available, which bound the aesthetic potential of the painting. If you’re going to replace natural color, you’ll want choices. The richness and translucency of opaqueness of colors, the range of hues available at different values (tones) and other characteristics of the paint will determine how exuberant your painting can become.

How is this different than just painting abstracts in your studio? Pure abstraction is inherently inward facing, where the subject matter is only what the artist can conjure. In my opinion, this results in a work that is very private. Abstract art is alienating to many because the source reference is unknowable; the topic came from within the artist’s mind, in a place we cannot go or may not want to go. Thus, while purely abstract art can be impactful, it is not communicating an experience most of us can relate to.

Painting from life, on the other hand, is inherently open, outward facing. Depicting a recognizable motif is a defining characteristic of this type of art. It is present in the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and other post-impressionists who introduced abstractions into their work. By establishing an understandable context, the viewer can then see a difference in how an artist perceives a subject matter the viewer knows. This allows the viewer to get outside her own way of seeing. Experiencing another’s difference in perception is an aesthetic thrill. It brings us closer to the artist and expands our own artistic vocabulary.

I had looked at clouds and mountains and water and thought, ‘I’ve painted this before’, meaning that I’ve already experienced rendering this subject matter in a worthy manner. I had already learned from it. ‘Normal’ representative painting was no longer rewarding enough for me. What’s so inadequate about repeating what you have already conquered? Surely you can still improve your realistic work? We probably could have asked Monet or Cezanne the same question. Why did they break with a worthy tradition? Was it an excuse for poor talent, incompetence or laziness? In my case, I have already achieved very good results painting realistically.

In my case, I have already achieved very good results painting realistically. Why is articulating in a new way a priority? It is more artistic restlessness than anything else. One is not just looking and responding to creation; one is also re-creating it as art that is both allusive to its inspiration and at the same time a new visual experience.

Thus, I emoted the colors based on instinct and in the context of other ‘unreal’ colors on the canvas. I was inventing an abstraction language just like Van Gogh and Cezanne had done. This is liberating. You never have to look at anything in a conventional way again.

Ebey’s Landing II

The work should also draw you in. In Van Gogh’s art, we sense a sincere and creative response to what he was looking at. There is an ethos of fidelity expressed through the filter of his peculiar formal language. It was one only he could speak at the time, but one which everyone can understand. The viewer’s mind is expanded as he or she understands a familiar subject matter as seen through Vincent’s unique interpretation. Moreover, as we accept and admire his work, we are expressing tolerance and openness.

What’s more, the lack of precision and realist fidelity in portraying a specific individual helps puts Van Gogh’s work in the realm of universals, which have broad appeal. He starts with the individual but ends up portraying a type of person – a potato eater, a jolly postman, a depressed laundry lady, a field of corn, irises, fishing boats, etc.

While many artists have taken radical leaps over the centuries, to me it feels like uncharted territory. Inventing a new vocabulary is not a process any realist mentor can teach to you. One must invent rules to prescribe the new world within the work. Yet what you render must have a sense of inevitability. Anchoring it with a recognizable subject matter that has nevertheless been abstracted to represent a type makes the work appealing.

Allow me to get a bit mystical for a moment. If we believe that what we experience is not merely visual perception, but input into a greater consciousness, then seeing with your mind and manifesting this expands this consciousness. With new artwork, you augment the beauty of creation. You are participating in the same creative stream that spawned the diversity of creation. Inventing a language also provides a mystical sense of comradery with those who have founded movements across time. Even if your work doesn’t result in a new ‘ism’, nevertheless you belong to a brotherhood of the innovators.

Inventing a language also provides a mystical sense of comradery with those who have founded movements across time. Even if your work doesn’t result in a new ‘ism’, nevertheless you belong to a brotherhood of the like-minded. Paradigm shifts large and small are memorable moments in culture that imprint on our collective consciousness.

— Roy Zuniga
May 2017, Langley, WA

Nature’s Creativity

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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Evolutionary ‘creation’ means that organisms improve, not because of the designing hand of an external God, but rather through the unceasing movement of creatures interacting with others that occasionally results in notable improvements. Some writers have projected a guiding will onto the earth, with the revelation of humans as a manifestation of its consciousness. This goes a bit far, in my mind, blending science with superstation in one story. As I’ve written elsewhere, I prefer to keep them distinct. Weaving inputted intentions into the scientific narrative puts a magical agency in the planet, which only makes us wonder about the location of its brain and the mechanism of expressing a terrestrial will. Certainly humans, with all our terra-deforming activity can’t be the highest expression. Not yet, at least.

Be that as it may, the notion of unplanned discovery leading to the creation of something wonderful is intriguing. It’s a dynamic I’m looking to emulate in painting. This is not a scientific experiment, but rather an artistic one aimed at realizing a different type of personal awareness, one that has symmetry with the evolutionary process. It is also nothing new; painters do this all the time.

Look at the work of Van Gogh – you rarely see strict outlines. Rather, there is a hail of brushwork that both integrates and separates forms. Line is not indicating boundary; rather your mind is perceiving patterns and interpreting them as forms. A wave of green-black becomes a cypress tree, and a similar pattern in blue becomes sky and clouds as the brush work swirls within the boundaries of the canvass. It’s a kind of discovery through brushwork. Vincent was very connected with the earth and those who toil it. It’s no surprise that his art broadcasts a message of organic life that is nevertheless not a descriptive representation of individual things.

The human mind is rather analytical, and Vincent’s letters are replete with reflection, comparisons and analysis of the work of others. Yet he was able to oscillate between analysis and execution. For Vincent, growth as an artist can in the execution itself. His strong will precluded a scientific approach. There was a relentless will that drove the action of painting, and you can see this manifested in the frenetic brushwork itself. This speaks of the principle of life finding a new existence. Vincent mutated the way we see – no one had ever perceived through art like he did. Today, after you take in his canvasses, you cannot go outside and see things the same way.

Is this mimicking the evolutionary discovery process in art? How do we teach others to make similar discoveries? The thinking that brought the Vincent’s innovations is not the thinking that will bring the next. Rather, the lesson is the discovery process itself. It’s an attitude, a methodology of discovery. The rational Vincent set himself up to be able to explore. It is possible to get in the exploration mindset through a controlled process that allows discovery to playout within the ‘world’ of the canvass.

To similarly achieve this, we just need to define conceptual equivalences. Since we cannot mimic the entire evolutionary process, we can setup a micro-session. The idea is to conceive of you hand and brush as a creature, and constrain exploration within the canvass. Think of the act of pushing paint around the canvass in terms of this metaphor: the ‘creature’ is exploring its boundaries, being attracted by certain things (other colors), assimilating with its surroundings, pushing here, giving way there, being assertive and defensive in one area, and merging, blending in other areas. The behavior is determined by a number of factors, including the color loaded, perceived associations and contrasts with other colors and the ‘boundaries’ of the composition.

The goal is to become one with your brush, letting it lead, exploring surroundings, allowing intuition and the ‘laws’ of art govern your reactions. The visual energy of the loaded color will react to other colors and forms. Conceive of your brush as a perceptive creature, as the ‘active agent’ in its own world. Do not guide it by a preconceived design, but let your inner conditioning as an artist, based on experiences from the past, guide your reactions. Be very mindful of every turn, of surroundings, of what your active agent wants and needs, how it reacts. Don’t think of your hand as the executor of your mind’s plan. Rather, let your mind be the mechanism of perception and response to what your hand is doing. Add and remove color, blend or differentiate. Execute intuitively without analytical reasoning. We can’t quite describe it because the process is both intentional and not rational. You shouldn’t be thinking ‘the form turns, so I need to make it darker’, or ‘here is red, which needs to be enhanced by the application of a compliment’.

That would be like having a pro basketball player thinking ‘now I’m going to take a shot, so I have to have my feet plated and my elbow under my hand, bend knees first and let the jump flow with a final flick of the wrist’. The masters of basketball or any sport do not deconstruct their movements when they are ‘in the zone’. The movements are just natural. For the master, whatever they do should be done. There is no need for a book of instructions, or coaches planning every play. Their actions are normative by definition. Masters do what they do because they are masters; they don’t act to be justified. In the same way, allow yourself to get into an execution zone. Get in ‘creative creature mode’ as you execute brushwork.

Not every mutation in nature yields pleasing results. Likewise, sticking to this discovery mode may not immediately yield artwork that should be framed. You may not be a master yet. Nevertheless, the process is more about how you think and perceive than it is about the outcome. By allowing your fingers to do the thinking, you will be present and open to responding, and the process will be teaching you based on outcomes. It is trial and error, unfolding as a dialectic when you interact, discover and then step back to understand, reload your brush and go back in. As you get into an action-response rhythm, the act of painting becomes meditative. An evolving progression that builds a work of art from the inside-out.

The discovery mindset will remove boundaries and pre-conceived notions and lead to unexpected ‘mutations’ of the subject matter. As Michelangelo ‘freed’ the figures inherent in the blocks of marble, so you too will release a work that is both yours and beyond yourself. This is a mystery in art, as the creator is not really a designer, but more of a responder, a liberator of worlds. You get the sense that you are participating in a slow revelation.

Nature is full of recursive patterns – the spirals of galaxies are mirrored in the spirals of conch shells. Fractal branching can indefinitely recursive. Your creativity, when in discovery mode, is a recursion of the creative process of the earth and the universe. That revelation is mystifying and wonderful. It will give you a new sense of being, and an empathy with the creative process of nature.

— Roy Zuniga
Kirkland, WA

Dynamics of Myth

~ using culture to shift our worldviews

Can we still paint ideal figures?

Language in the Service of Myth

Channeling Intent

The Divine Right of Christ

The Space God

An Ontology

Intro

The Existence of Art

A Universal Process for a Personal Worldview

Why Heroes?

Abstracting en Plein Air

Nature’s Creativity