The Skill of Peeking

If you could wear just one hat for your whole life, what would it be?  A recent experience has helped me discover my answer.

There’s a place of residence in Peekskill, NY that caters to artists.  The application process for an apartment includes being officially designated an Artist by the City.  If for no other reason than self-amusement I may just complete that application.  While I’ve never thought of myself as an artist (primarily because I’ve not really thought about what one is), it might be fun to try on that hat and see how it feels.

I don’t consider myself much of anything beyond a manifestation of God attempting to live in the spirit of the universe as I find it: playful, loving, deep.  Every other sort of identity is, to me, just theater: i.e., roles we play in the Great Pageant of the soul’s evolution to Oneness.  I no more think of myself as a man than I think of myself as a one-legged tap dancer.  The universe is much too mysterious to hold virtually any identity other than lightly. 

My primary activity playing the role of “social being” is paying attention, learning from my experience, and, as best I can, sharing what I’m learning with others in the off-chance it might be useful to someone.  Hence this essay.

That sharing, that interpretation of my experience, might be called art I suppose.  

In my case, such expression––most notably in the forms of writing, drawing, the photography of stone sculptures I’ve built on the Vermont landscape, a portfolio of all sorts of marketing-related communication I’ve created for others, and simply conversation––is an attempt to champion what I call the most fear-provoking point of view the world has ever known: Everything is a gift, and the business of life is discovering how come.

Basically, I’m one child of the universe exploring life’s two most important questions: What’s going on, and what’s the healthiest action I can take in this moment?  

Dare I call it developing the skill of peeking?

And while that may be one reasonable definition of artist, I’d say it applies to every one of us, whether we know it or not.  Those called artists by society just happen to be doing so in a particularly dramatic, and therefore noticeable (and sometimes even noteworthy) way.  

But not more meaningful to humankind than anyone who is actively learning how to love.

That’s the hat I prefer.