Actuality and Potentiality

There are few things in this world that astounds me more than the arts. Whether it is visual arts or music, it never fails to awaken a sense of amazement when I am witnessing something that was created out of basically nothing. For me, art are man-made miracles that breaks the boundaries of everyday living and demonstrates to us a different way to look at our world.

Seeing the world differently

Artists are able to create these beacons of beauty because they see the world differently than most. When Michelangelo gazed upon the roof of the Sistine Chapel, he looked beyond its actual appearance and saw its potential to become a work of art. Before Auguste Rodin created ‘The Thinker’, thousands of people might have walked past the very piece of stone and never imagined what it could become. Beethoven composed his 9th Symphony when he was completely deaf because his mind ‘heard’ music differently than even hearing-abled people.

These artists were able to conceive these masterpieces because they moved beyond actual existence into the realm of potentiality. They refused to be limited by the confines of current actuality and broke through into the dimension of unlimited potential. When they look at the world, they did not see an arrangement of artifacts in actual existence but an endless stream of potential futures already existing, impatiently waiting to come into being.

Our future as a work of art

The same can be said about our own existence. The way we view things make a huge difference in our lives. Do we see ourselves in the way we are existing now or do you see our unlimited potential? When we look at our individual lives, what do we see? What do you see when you look at yourself? Do you see yourself as you are now or do you see your future, waiting to burst into life?

Our entire lives are a mixture of existing, changing and becoming.  In order to touch the future, we have to see something that no one else is seeing. To compose the symphony of your life, you have to hear your own melody even when others are deaf to it. You have to reach out into the future, grab hold of your potential, and drag it towards you until it becomes a reality.

Therefore, let us not look at the ‘as is’ but at the ‘not yet’. Let us see everything that surrounds us as potential miracles and work hard to make these miracles a reality.

This article was originally published on www.elmenlamprecht.com