Don't ignore your gut feeling
Lessons from Greenlight by Matthew McConaughey + updates on new artwork
If you’re new around here, welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays - where I share wisdom from history’s greatest minds.
Before we get to the wisdom for this week.
Quick update: I’ve been working on two new icons of Christ Pantocrator.
Briefly, the one on the left (gold) is 30% complete. Measures around 12 x 16 inches. The right one is 10% complete and around 4x larger in size. I’m far from completion but we’re getting there.
For my main reference, I’m using the oldest depiction of Christ available, Christ Pantocrator, which dates back to the 6th century (found at Saint Catherine’s Monastery). The symbolism in that icon is precisely why I decided to start these two icons - I’ll do a post once I’ve finished the icons.
But this presents me with some challenges. First, the original icon is weathered by time so it’s difficult to see the full details of it. Second, the photos online don’t capture the full colours. Third, there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on the colours of the tunic and garment.
I’m planning on completing both icons within the next few weeks.
Onto Matthew McConaughey’s book Greenlight.
Lessons from Greenlight by Matthew McConaughey
We are never perfect in every moment but we strive towards it. So don’t let your failures prevent you from progressing. I’ve tried to be a good man, to not lie and deceive myself, to be more pure of heart and mind, but I am full of lust, objectifying other people and myself. I do not feel a connection to my past nor see the path to my future. I’m lost. I don’t feel myself.
Measure your success with how present you’ve been in every moment. We are all made for every moment we encounter. Whether the moment makes us or we make the moment. Whether we are helpless in it or on top of it. The predator or the prey. We are made for that moment.
Focus on your craft. Become excellent. Don’t create imaginary constraints. A leading role, a blue ribbon, a winning score, a great idea, the love of our life, euphoric bliss, who are we to think we don’t deserve these fortunes when they are in our grasp? Who are we think we haven’t earned them? If we stay in process, within ourselves, in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line: Why? Because we aren’t thinking of the finish line, we’re not looking at the clock, we’re not watching ourselves on the Jumbotron performing. we are performing in real time, where the approach is the destination and there is no goal line because we are finished.
Our lives begin the moment we realize we will return to dust. Just as the early death of my father made me level up and become a man, the family emergency along with fatherhood helped me more deeply reconsider my life and who I was in it. Especially with my career. Death, family crisis, and newborns—the end of a life, trying to keep a life, and welcoming in a new one—these are three things that will shake your floor, give you clarity, remind you of your mortality, and hence, give you the courage to live harder, stronger and truer.
Till next week,
Peace!
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