When I was around eight years old, my class visited a local museum featuring modern impressionist paintings. Like the other children in my class, I stood right in front of each work and tried to make sense of what I saw. Unlike my classmates, I planted myself right in front of the largest painting and refused to move. I was puzzled. I may have been a mere third grader, but even I knew my baby brother could've painted this; it was only glops of paint spattered haphazardly onto a white background. Furthermore, the title of the work indicated I should be looking at a farm, and my innate bullshit meter was starting to go off.
Fortunately for me, there was a guide there that appeared to actually like her job. She explained that this type of art was meant to be viewed from a distance, and placing her hands on my shoulders, she gently guided me as I stepped backwards. With one final step, azure Holsteins munching jade green grass suddenly materialized.
It was a confusing epiphany. There was the clarity and relief of suddenly understanding that from apparent chaos, order can emerge; however, there was also the very unsettling realization that everything I thought I knew could actually be something altogether different.
I am having that same sort of experience now.
For many years, I studied Eastern religions as part of my education. In addition, I was raised in a strictly Christian tradition. These faiths share the thread of in which giving up the "self" leads to a reward of something even better. So you would think I would be one of the last people to be thrust into an existential crisis of sorts when I find myself - "my self" - melting away into a bigger picture. I am a little dot of paint. Now what?
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