(Literally "Going up in Smoke")
A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty.
As we continue to contemplate the Principles of da Vinci as laid out in "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci," I think this principle is the hardest for me to approach, probably because it hits closest to home.
"As you awaken your powers of Curiosita, probe the depths of experience, and sharpen your senses, you come face to face with the unknown. Keeping your mind open in the face of uncertainty is the single most powerful secret of unleashing your creative potential. And the principle of Sfumato is the key to that openness."
"Leonardo's ceaseless questioning and insistence on using his senses to explore experience led him to many great insights and discoveries, but they also led him to confront the vastness of the unknown and ultimately the unknowable. Yet his phenomenal ability to hold the tension of opposites, to embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and paradox, was a critical characteristic of his genius."
To live in today's world is to live with uncertainty, ambiguity and paradox. You don't have to go looking for it, it exists in so many facets of our lives regardless. I think the only people who wouldn't admit to that are the ones who are lying to themselves, which is a way of hiding yourself from the world and it's the opposite of thinking like Leonardo. But it's so seductive in the sort of chaotic world we live in. When you're constantly bombarded by the fearsome, the loathsome, the unthinkable, it can become too much to bear and can cause us to shut down.
The problem is that the first thing that will shut down is our creativity, which of course is our openness to new things, new connections, new realities and our key to navigating the rough waters. New = unknown. Facing the unknown requires a degree of inner strength and resources that the world around us tries to rob away.
Almost 20 years ago now I became very ill. I was unable to work or really to function for about 6-8 months. I had almost no short-term memory so that even as I was talking to someone, I would completely forget what the conversation was about. People would remind me of something I'd said but I had no memory of having said it. To this day, when I get tired I lose words. I can't remember words for simple things or names, never a strong suit for me anyway. For much of this time, I could only be up for several hours at a time. Living abroad at the time it hit, I ended up having to return to the States. I'd lost my health, my memory, my physical and mental strength, my home, my friends. It was the most profound sense of emptiness and loss I could fathom. And it was frightening because I didn't know if I would ever get better.
I only began to function again because I refused to close down. It wasn't a necessarily or entirely a conscious choice but I knew I had to challenge myself every day. The challenges I faced myself with in those days would seem ludicrous in any other context but it was based on asking myself to do something or to face something that I didn't know if I'd be able to do.
As I thought about my situation, the picture that came to my mind was that of a reservoir. I had a reservoir of strength that had been emptied by the battering my life had taken with all of the losses I'd faced and I had to find a way to fill up that reservoir, at least enough to help me function through the day. So I began to look at the things that "filled me up." What were the things that, when I did them or was exposed to them, made me feel stronger, that lifted my head.
There were three things that were key for me. One was music. I identified that it was critical for me to be bathed in music for as much of my day as possible. Music filled my room every minute I could manage. I played my guitar for as long as I could sit up and hold it. There were particular musicians, songwriters, that strengthened me even more than others. So I surrounded myself with their music, their songs. I love words, which is why the loss of them is so painful, but those songwriters, in the way they joined their words, lit something deep in me and I could listen to the same songs over and over again. They have never lost their power for me.
Another was fiber crafts. At that time, I could only knit and crochet and didn't have much money to buy supplies for either but I managed it. There's no telling how many things I made with crappy yarn during that period but the joy was in the process of making, not in the quality of the supplies or the finished object.
And finally, for me, was prayer.
Identifying those key rivers that fed into my reservoir was what gave me the means of emerging from those dark days. Now when I begin to feel uneasy or insecure or uncertain, I know where to go. I've added things that give me life, that fill up my reservoir, but those three foundational things are still my keys and I still run to them in times of turmoil.
My personal Leonardo challenge to you today is to think about what it is in your life that gives you strength. Find the things within you and around you that "fill your reservoir" and give them free reign in your life to build up the inner resources that will allow you to "keep your mind open in the face of uncertainty" so you can know the "powerful secret of unleashing your creative potential."
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