Art is powered by the gestalt of your reality

All you have to do is soak in the details

In History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell talks about how he goes about creative work: first he has to soak in all the details before forming the gestalt, and once he has done that then it’s a simple matter to write down what he has discovered. And then you can naturally support the big picture with the corresponding underlying details and create an even richer picture of the phenomenon than if one were to just look at the big picture. That’s me editorializing a little bit, but it strikes me as true and a useful guide for how I can go about writing and art and creating in general.

I’ve been soaking in the details my whole life, and what I need to do now is muster up the courage to zoom out and see the whole. My fatal flaw is overthinking, and as my true goal is to stay safe, I can overthink my way out of any situation that will have me exposing any part of myself to anyone, even if I don’t know who they are and they don’t know who I am. Must I wait for my true goal to change, or can I nudge it along in the direction I want it to go so I don’t end up having this specific regret in my deathbed?

I was much braver as a child— or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, bravery was a more natural state of being. As a child, you see something and it sparks an interest, so you pursue it. You have an interesting thought so you say it out loud or write it down. You’re imagining a story so you try to bring it into your reality somehow. You unabashedly fulfill your wishes (see: me collecting all the books in my house, stacking them as in a bookstore, cutting out money bills from paper, and going book shopping).

It’s only when we started believing the stories adults told us that our pure gestalt starts to become watered down or distorted, and we start to lose this state of pure agency, where desire flows seamlessly into action. But then we’re told what actions are ‘right’ and which are ‘wrong’ and then we have to try and edit them, and eventually edit our desires, too.

Now that I’m an adult myself who has seen plenty of what can go wrong when we follow others’ stories instead of our own, I would like to trust more in my own gestalt of reality. Unfortunately, it will be irrevocably tainted by the edits I’ve incorporated from my parents, teachers, peers, bosses and society at large, but I suppose that’s a common human condition and there’s no need to fret about it. I shall simply go on and do my best soaking in all the details and letting the panorama come into being, in its own time.