The Other Artist

Image Credit:Juanita Mulder, Pixabay

I stood before the canvas, painting my life.

I had risen the ranks from cub copywriter to Creative Grouphead.

Now  I painted myself as the owner of a successful creative shop, seated in  a nice office with several employees, and the latest technology, handing out business cards which read Purple Patch to a string of high paying clients.

Suddenly a paint brush carried by an unseen hand painted a cloud over this scene.

Startled I said, "Who are you and what are you doing? This is the canvas on which I, and I alone, am painting my life.  It is something I, and I alone, must do."

"Put down your paintbrush and follow me" said a voice. "We need to talk"

"How can I follow you when I can't see you," I said. "And who are you? Do you have a name?"

"You can call me The Other Artist," said the voice.  "Please follow the sound of the footsteps."

I listened for the sound of the footsteps and followed them.

One of the chairs in my living room rose through the air, and came down on the floor, opposite another chair, ever so lightly.

"Sit down," said the voice I now knew as "The Other Artist".

I sat down on one of the chairs.

From the opposite chair, The Other Artist continued...

"Now where were we  - oh yes, you were saying you were painting your life, and it was something you and you alone must do."

"Yes, that's right," I said.

"This may seem dismaying to you," said The Other Artist, "but I am involved in everything you do."

..."The painting of your life was, is, and will always be, a joint venture between us."

…"How do I put it?  Oh, I know...if you think of your life as a start up, you and I are  founder and cofounder."

"That is a bad analogy," I said to The Other Artist. "You do not know my vision."

"I do," said The Other Artist.  "And what's more, my participation will make sense to you. If not now, later."

"No," I said to The Other Artist, "You are just a figment of my imagination, you are just a creation of my fears."

Saying that, I got up from the chair and stomped back to my painting.

I hoped the cloud The Other Artist had painted on the canvas would no longer be there.

But it was still there.

I tried to paint over it.

Every time, I did, it came back again.

And It grew blacker and blacker.

I broke into tears.

I was in a depression.

The meaning of the cloud became clear to me.

"What good can come from a depression?" I said, wringing my hands.

"You'll see," said The Other Artist.

I don't know why, but I felt the urge to paint a child on the canvas.

My vision for my life had not contained a child before.

The child quickly captured my imagination, and I painted diapers and baby bottles and a stroller onto the canvas.

The Other Artist then painted a letter from my sister Rosie on the canvas, saying "maybe, you should move to America."

I looked at the letter and wondered if it was the right thing to do, because I was in an existential crisis.

The Other Artist didn't say anything.

America had been a dream of mine.  Then I had forgotten about the dream.  Now it was back again as an answer to the existential crisis I was facing.

So I painted an American flag onto the canvas.

I was excited and scared about my new life in America.  I didn't know what it held in store for me.

No sooner had I painted the American flag, when The Other Artist painted a dry well on the canvas.

What's that for? I asked.

"America is going to care a fig about your advertising copy experience," said The Other Artist, "so you will need to paint yourself some other way to earn a living in America."

The only job I could think of was an Admin Assistant, so I painted myself answering a telephone.

I was an Admin Assistant for a short while.

Then The Other Artist painted a whole lot of numbers on the canvas.

"What's that for?" I said.

"It's your lucky break.  A chance to become a Commissions Analyst. "

I was terrified when I found out a Commissions Analyst had to do calculations on massive Excel spreadsheets.

"I am a words person, not a numbers person" I said.

I tried to paint over the numbers.

The Other Artist painted the numbers back.

I found myself in a new career as a Commissions Analyst.

I learned Excel, I learned Xactly, I learned Varicent, I learned about Sales Comp. I learned about quotas and target incentives and commission rates and thresholds and caps.

I became good at being a Commissions Analyst.

The Other Artist also painted pots and pans and washers and dryers and cars onto the canvas.

Things which had never been a part of my life in India.

I learned to cook, I learned to do laundry, I learned to drive.

"Enjoying much?" The Other Artist asked.

I didn't want to give The Other Artist the satisfaction of knowing I enjoyed cooking and driving, so I just answered with an inscrutable "harumph".

And so I kept putting things on the canvas of my life.

And The Other Artist  kept putting things on the canvas of my life.

The Other Artist would paint a flower on the canvas every now and then.

Each flower was a new friend.

These friends would enrich my life.

They would tell me wonderful tales.  I would listen with rapture to stories like Crimson Sails and Baba Yaga, or thrill to the poem Love at First Sight by Wisława Szymborska.

These friends would introduce me to exotic new foods like piroshki and pilmeni and faworki and adai dosa and nasi lemak and roti prata.

I would have many wonderful experiences with these friends.

I would write about  these friends in my United States of Friendship series of posts.

The Other Artist painted a rose with a thorn onto the canvas at one time.

The rose represented the beauty of being able to telecommute, the thorn was that every time a boss left and a new boss took over, the new boss would give me grief over my telecommuting privileges and try to take them away.

The Other Artist painted crossed swords.

This was a boss who proved to be a challenge to me on a job.

I disagreed with this boss.

Our disagreements got worse and worse.

Until I walked out of that job.

I painted myself as a Commissions Consultant soon after.

The Other Artist drew a smiley emoji on the canvas.

And then I suddenly realized something.

The Other Artist was indeed a cofounder of my life.

And a good cofounder.

All the things The Other Artist had painted on the canvas of my life had enriched my life in one way or another.

The Other Artist  had taken me in new directions and expanded my horizons.

The Other Artist had strengthened my knowledge, experience, and skills.

The Other Artist had filled my life with new possibilities and opportunities.

This was true even when The Other Artist painted darker things on the canvas of my life - the cloud, the dry well, the thorns, the crossed swords.

In the reflection and conquest of those challenges and problems, (even though some of them shook me to the core) I became a stronger, more confident, and more competent person.

With every crisis, I gained increasing clarity, grit, and resilience.

And this equipped me to deal with the gravest challenges of life - loss, illness, and death.

I became less and less afraid of misfortunes, troubles, and trials.

I became less and less afraid of the red pill - to use a symbol from the movie The Matrix.

The red pill - which stands for truth - contained the seeds of a richer, more meaningful, and more fulfilling life.

For me, this translated into increasing peace, contentment, and satisfaction.

This is because, I learned to meditate, control my monkey mind, and get out of my own way, after concluding that the best way to deal with the truth of unavoidable suffering, was not to run away from it, but to change my attitude to it, and to take responsibility for it by finding appropriate tools to deal with it.

I lost my former self-centeredness and preoccupation.

I became more present to other people and their lives.

I became a better listener.

I aimed to understand first, and be understood second in my interactions with other people.

All these were things I couldn't put a price on.

And much of it was due to what The Other Artist had put on my canvas.

The Other Artist had played a seminal role in my growth and maturity as a human being.

And the day would come when The Other Artist would paint a pen on the canvas.

I couldn't have been more excited.

"Does this mean I am going to write again?" I said, my heart bursting with hope. "I have so much I want to share with other people."

"What do you think?" The Other Artist asked.

I didn't answer.

I just began to paint  a blog page on the canvas.

And so here we are today.

I am still painting the canvas of my life.

And The Other Artist is still painting new things on my canvas.

Some are good things.

Some are bad things.

I have learned not to think of the bad things as permanent bad things.

They are temporary bad things, which lead to good things - new knowledge, new insights, a positive new direction, or a new way of being.

So although I love the current canvas of my life, and I would be happy to stop the clock, there's a part of me that's excited about the new things The Other Artist will surely paint on the canvas of my life.

I plan not to resist what The Other Artist paints on my canvas.

In fact, I plan to fully cooperate with what The Other Artist paints on my canvas.

That's because I now have a deep acceptance of The Other Artist as a co-creator of my life.