Why I Paint

Someone recently asked me why I paint. I didn't have an answer. Although, "I paint because I enjoy painting" is a perfectly appropriate answer, I would not say that it encompasses every aspect of my affinity towards creativity.

The answer to this question is not easy. I had asked this very same question to myself when I was treating my patients as a dentist. Initially, I found satisfaction in knowing that because of my knowledge and skill, I could make a person's life better, maybe ease their pain, or give them a better quality of life. But later on, I began to understand that doing something for another person gives me a false sense of importance. Also, patients can ignore my advice, choose somebody else, misunderstand what I said, or simply make decisions I couldn't possibly control. If my sense of meaning depended on the other person's response, I was handing part of my inner equilibrium to them.

Now, whatever I do, I try to do it with the understanding that my work is my service to God. With this yagna-anusandhana, life suddenly has begun to make sense. I paint because this is a way to satisfy my curiosity, my Brahmajignyasa. It is an opportunity to investigate something and bring it into existence.

Whether somebody praises it, buys it, understands it, scrolls past it, or says, "Why didn't you paint it more realistically?" None of that determines whether the act itself was worthwhile. I can be excited about a reel getting 2,000 views without making those views the meaning of the painting or I can think about selling paintings without making the sale the validation of the painting.

The other aspect of Brahmajignyasa is that, it makes the whole thing click. My research isn't merely research for a painting. I encounter a subject and start asking questions like.. 

What does the text actually say?

How do I incorporate this detail there while keeping the whole painting cohesive?

How do I add this symbol without weakening the composition?

What would this person's expression be?

ETC. 

That's very different from "I must prove that I'm an artist." The painting becomes a kind of visual learning. The finished canvas is almost the residue of that which makes the work a prasaada of this whole pooja - kainkarya. I'm not saying, "Look what I have achieved." Rather, This is what came out of the process I was able to undertake.

That also explains my relationship with "perfection." If the purpose were to produce the objectively perfect image, I would eventually have to stop because I have reached the target.

But if the purpose is investigation, contemplation, and offering, then there is no final perfect canvas. There is only this learning and then the next one. It is more like, "If I make this painting perfect, I won't need to paint another canvas." I need the next question.

Hence, the question, "Why do you paint?" is not really a question about painting at all. It's a question about what makes an action meaningful. In this case, it is a means to an end which in itself is Brahmajignyasa, although, I do enjoy painting. 

But the enjoyment is the engine. The learning (Brahmajignyasa) is the goal.