THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
TERRITORY AND HIERARCHY
* * *
How can we tell if our orientation is territorial or hierarchical? One way is to ask ourselves, If I were feeling really anxious, what would I do? If we would pick up the phone and call six friends, one after the other, with the aim of hearing their voices and reassuring ourselves that they still love us, we’re operating hierarchically.
We’re seeking the good opinion of others.
What would Arnold Schwarzenegger do on a freaky day? He wouldn’t phone his buddies; he’d head for the gym. He wouldn’t care if the place was empty, if he didn’t say a word to a soul. He knows that working out, all by itself, is enough to bring him back to his center.
His orientation is territorial.
Here’s another test. Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
If you’re all alone on the planet, a hierarchical orientation makes no sense. There’s no one to impress. So, if you’d still pursue that activity, congratulations. You’re doing it territorially.
If Arnold Schwarzenegger were the last man on earth, he’d still go the gym. Stevie Wonder would still pound the piano. The sustenance they get comes from the act itself, not from the impression it makes on others. I have a friend who’s nuts for clothes. If she were the last woman on earth, she would shoot straight to Givenchy or St. Laurent, smash her way in, and start pillaging. In her case, it wouldn’t be to impress others. She just loves clothes. That’s her territory.
Now: What about ourselves as artists?
How do we do our work? Hierarchically or territorially?
If we were freaked out, would we go there first?
If we were the last person on earth, would we still show up at the studio, the rehearsal hall, the laboratory?
THE SUPREME VIRTUE
* * *
Someone once asked the Spartan king Leonidas to identify the supreme warrior virtue from which all others flowed. He replied: “Contempt for death.”
For us as artists, read “failure.” Contempt for failure is our cardinal virtue. By confining our attention territorially to our own thoughts and actions—in other words, to the work and its demands—we cut the earth from beneath the blue-painted, shield-banging, spear-brandishing foe.
THE FRUITS OF OUR LABOR
* * *
When Krishna instructed Arjuna that we have a right to our labor but not to the fruits of our labor, he was counseling the warrior to act territorially, not hierarchically. We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
Then there’s the third way proffered by the Lord of Discipline, which is beyond both hierarchy and territory. That is to do the work and give it to Him. Do it as an offering to God.
Give the act to me.
Purged of hope and ego,
Fix your attention on the soul.
Act and do for me.
The work comes from heaven anyway. Why not give it back?
To labor in this way, The Bhagavad-Gita tells us, is a form of meditation and a supreme species of spiritual devotion. It also, I believe, conforms most closely to Higher Reality. In fact, we are servants of the Mystery. We were put here on earth to act as agents of the Infinite, to bring into existence that which is not yet, but which will be, through us.
Every breath we take, every heartbeat, every evolution of every cell comes from God and is sustained by God every second, just as every creation, invention, every bar of music or line of verse, every thought, vision, fantasy, every dumb-ass flop and stroke of genius comes from that infinite intelligence that created us and the universe in all its dimensions, out of the Void, the field of infinite potential, primal chaos, the Muse. To acknowledge that reality, to efface all ego, to let the work come through us and give it back freely to its source, that, in my opinion, is as true to reality as it gets.
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
* * *
In the end, we arrive at a kind of model of the artist’s world, and that model is that there exist other, higher planes of reality, about which we can prove nothing, but from which arise our lives, our work and our art. These spheres are trying to communicate with ours. When Blake said Eternity is in love with the creations of time, he was referring to those planes of pure potential, which are timeless, placeless, spaceless, but which long to bring their visions into being here, in this time-bound, space-defined world.
The artist is the servant of that intention, those angels, that Muse. The enemy of the artist is the small-time Ego, which begets Resistance, which is the dragon that guards the gold. That’s why an artist must be a warrior and, like all warriors, artists over time acquire modesty and humility. They may, some of them, conduct themselves flamboyantly in public. But alone with the work they are chaste and humble. They know they are not the source of the creations they bring into being. They only facilitate. They carry. They are the willing and skilled instruments of the gods and goddesses they serve.
THE ARTIST’S LIFE
* * *
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.
WITH GRATITUDE
For their generous permission to quote from their works, the author acknowledges the following sources:
BOOGIE CHILLEN
Written by: John Lee Hooker/Bernard Besman © 1998 Careers-BMG Music Publishing, Inc. (BMI)
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
WORKING CLASS HERO
Copyright 1970 (Renewed) Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and Julian Lennon. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Reprinted by permission of Lawrence Kasdan from THE BIG CHILL © 1983. All rights reserved.
THE SEARCHERS
Written by: Frank S. Nugent © 1956
Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from XENOPHON: VOLUME VII ~ SCRIPTA MINORA, Loeb Classical Library Vol. 183, translated by E.C. Marchant, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1925, 1968. The Loeb Classical Library® is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Approximately 94 words (p 48) from PHAEDRUS AND THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH LETTERS by Plato, translated by Walter Hamilton (Penguin Classics, 1973). Copyright © Walter Hamilton, 1973.
Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from ARISTOTLE: VOLUME XIX ~ NICHOMACHEAN ETHICS, Loeb Classical Library Vol. 73, translated by H. Rackham, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1926. The Loeb Classical Library® is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
THE SCOTTISH HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION Written by: W. H. Murray © 1951 J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd.
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The War of Art Page 9