Keep Calm Carry On Painting

We are all facing challenges right now. Events unprecedented in world history are seeing us quarantined, locked down and isolated. We are social creatures by design. Isolation starts to play on our minds. Couple this with a lack of freedom of movement destroying our established daily and weekly rhythms, it is all too easy to slide into a sense of powerlessness and depression. If that were not enough, add to the mix of economic collapse and a disease that threatens death, crisis edges its way into one’s life.

Crisis, whether it be social or personal, when it leads to rapid and far reaching change, affects our state of being, leaving us disorientated. When the uncertainty of when things will ever return to a state of normality cuts us adrift from the anchor of our life patterns, our sense of identity comes into question. Without a sense of identity our world dissolves into chaos leading us be further overwhelmed by the situation at hand.

Mindless distractions, such as drugs, alcohol or Social Media are not a solution, as they only provide a short term Dopamine hit that quickly fades, leaving the ever pressing issues to dominate your thoughts again.

The way forward is to as far as possible, to relax, disconnect for a time from the media maelstrom and engage in rewarding activities, whether it be going for walks, spending time with a pet, talking to a friend or learning new skills. Is there a language you wanted to learn? What about those books you’ve been promising yourself that you’d read. How about picking up brush or a pencil and creating an artwork? Find something enjoyable yet requiring engaged focus rather than passive.

This will give you at least a small cornerstone of structure in a world bereft comprehension and certainty. You can create your own little of island of certainty, a life raft of tranquillity. 

Image: “Now Now Death, I’m Painting”, Leo Plaw, 30 x 40cm, oil on canvas. Original and Prints available.

 

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