Trapped.

I created the art for this entry before the writing. It’s a way of digging into my mind to see what’s beneath the conscious thoughts. I believe there is a ‘silent majority’ in our brains doing most of the work of being ‘us’ …without our being aware of it, because it’s not in the form of narrative or ‘thoughts’.

In current, western civilisation we allow the narrative part of the mind, that scrawny, noisy and frankly rather stupid part of our brains, to dictate almost everything we do. Yet the ‘silent majority’ of our brains are much more capable, better at processing, at recognising and solving problems and being generally creative. We in the west commonly lack skills to balance our noisy thinking with the quiet work of being, aware, feeling, observing and creating.

When you really start to loosen the grip of that chatty brain with yoga, meditation, art or music - it can feel like you’re doing absolutely nothing. But as you become ‘mindful’ the deeper layers of your mind begin to engage, process and grow. The outcome of mindfulness is commonly recognise as wisdom or creativity. A lot can happen in a mindful state. But our western culture has become largely blind to any effort or change that isn’t producing immediate and visible products.

We have been conditioned from childhood to rely so heavily on the narratives in our minds, that when we sense urgency or stress, we take shelter in familiar narratives. We navigate situations on the basis of those narratives, whether they’re helpful or not. In that state, we overlook solutions or opportunities. We can even ‘see’ problems that aren’t there, or misinterpret situations, just because one or two features of the situation resemble a past problem.

For me, letting my deeper, silent brain out of hiding is best done with spontaneous art. The piece ‘Trapped’ is an example. It expresses what I felt after I had just finished arguing with a plumber. He rang on behalf of the rental manager to offer excuses for not replacing something that wasn’t working properly. I was very triggered by his dismissive approach. During the last few years, I’ve had some horrendous experiences with landlords. My narrative mind defaulted to ‘underdog’ mode. I found myself getting more upset.

A few years ago I would’ve gone on ‘dealing with arseholes’ all afternoon. It’s a role I’m familiar with. But I stopped and did some artwork instead. I aimed, not at a specific topic, but to let my emotions out. As I created, I found deeper feelings buried beneath. I felt a deep sadness at losing my home years before during a relationship breakup. I poured my soul into that home. I felt the helplessness of being trapped in demoralising rental tenancy, beholden to the whim of landlords. That may sound melodramatic depending where you live. But here, tenants are expected to ask permission even to nail in a picture hook. Don’t get me started on the rest.

It wasn’t exactly ‘fun’ art, but it felt good to get my feelings out in the open. Doing this art allowed me to honour my feelings. I was surprised how calm I was afterwards. In that calmer state, I did some research into the Plummer’s argument and saw that he may have believed he was being entirely reasonable, due to a mistaken assumption about water supply to the house. I emailed to explain that it was a different system. I politely confirmed that they were in fact required to fix it. It has since been fixed.

I guess ‘trapped’ can express two kinds of feeling trapped. One is the physical situation of being priced out of the real estate market. Having worked so hard for so many years, only to know it will never be enough - is infuriating. The second kind of ‘trapped’ refers to the emotions that are hidden underneath the stories. Emotions need respect, they are there for a reason. But they can only be understood when we find a way to set them free, without judgement, and park our narratives for a while.