Dr Oliver Shaw

This title is an anonymous referenced quote in a book I own called “Love & Free” by a Japanese guy called Ayumu Takahashi. I bought the book about seven years ago when I was visiting Japan as a young tourist. The question, from the book, continues:

“That is, to know what you really want to do, what you came to do in this world. No matter how much money you have, or how good a job you have; if you don’t satisfy your soul, you can become ill, or bad things can happen to you. Experience various hardships and pain, and from that you will learn what true happiness is”.

It’s funny; I sit writing this underneath a painting I made that I really like–I don’t often make paintings that I like which is really annoying, I actually kind of hate painting but I do it because once in a blue moon I make something I like and it makes me profoundly happy. This is the work:

If I had craft and patience I would enjoy it more, I think, but since I was a kid I could never sit and learn a craft so it’s a real wonder how I did a PhD in creative writing; there I developed a kind of patience but I don’t have it in me it needs to be summoned. I’m going away from that now; towards some kind of happiness, which is being myself, which is being impatient and painting quickly and just like these words. It doesn’t matter if they are any good or not; you can stop reading whenever you like.

“That is why the soul will continue the journey, until it finds what is really necessary. Standing still and waiting will not bring happiness. And if you cannot rid of unnecessary things, you cannot acquire anything new. Times of change are always difficult, but those who cannot make the decision to rid themselves of those unnecessary things, their souls will never be satisfied.”

I’ve always enjoyed how my painting practice reflects where my soul is at; that’s why I show you that painting above, because its information to me that it–me, my soul–is satisfied. Painting is the medium. And it’s accessible to anyone; just pick up a paintbrush and some paint and move it around a canvas; if it’s frustrating, good, I’ve never had a work that speaks to me that I’ve enjoyed making, that felt good while I made it. It’s not until after, when I put the painting against the wall and look that I’ll know whether it is any good or not.

I’m living near the sea, as you know, I moved recently and it’s good that I did. Not because I think this is where I’m ‘meant’ to be but because I know that, before, is not where I was meant to be. I feel it more everyday; I walk the beach, back and forth, until I get to the one end where the shells pile up whole, in the corner beside the rocks.

It’s slow to walk along the beach because the sand is deep. I look at the sea as I’m walking and I always take a photograph and I always think, up until now anyway, that the sea looks more beautiful in the photo and that’s because of that old way. Like where I was living before this was more through photographs. I was looking at my phone too much and studying too much and because of this I am less affected by the real thing, which is why I’m now spending so much time with it now.

When I was a kid and even before I started studying so much I was deeply affected by the ocean; the sound, the movement, it moved me–moved my soul. Now I’ve been drawn back to it and it’s up to me to be patient and wait for it to speak again. I will continue to walk beside it and swim with it everyday until my soul is satisfied and I will honour that, when it happens, and declare it, somehow.

More on this, or something else, next week.

In one impatient breath,

Oliver Shaw. Monday 19 Aug 8:16 AM.