Brain Food #802: The paradox of action
The problem does not disappear, it merely changes shape
Thoughts of the day
Sometimes, especially when there are too many options, too many priorities on our to-do list, or too many problems to solve, the starting point might not be obvious. The advice often given is that beginning will set us in motion.
There are countless proverbs about the act of beginning, and it is true both in productivity and in creativity that once you have started you will have, eventually, accomplished something, whether that is a task or a draft. But what is less often mentioned is that this will not necessarily make any unpleasant feelings disappear.
What is the shape of this problem? by Louise Bourgeois (1999) is a series of diptychs that combine drawings with text. Bourgeois was tortured by anxiety and disrupted sleep, and she underwent years of psychoanalysis that she often wrote about, while drawing parallels to making art. Making art was, to her, a form of remedy, but she also acknowledged that paradoxically it fed into the very issues she was trying to address:
“I know that when I finish a drawing, my anxiety level decreases. When I draw it means that something bothers me, but I don’t know what it is. So it is the treatment of anxiety.”
This is the paradox of action. By drawing the problem, Bourgeois tries to unravel it, but by creating something she also opens herself up to suffering, scrutiny, other problems that weren’t there before. The problem does not disappear, it merely changes shape.
Perhaps what this is suggesting is that we must still do what we must do, not by deluding ourselves that one day all our torments will have gone away, because they are a part of existence, or by hoping that we can affect all outcomes, because they are beyond our control. We can carry on regardless, while accepting that there is not always an end to the road, or the end we have imagined.
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