This work was painted in oil on wood. It's an emotional piece contrasting stillness and action. On a deeper level, this painting speaks to the role of the unconscious looming large behind conscious activity.
I dislike the term subconscious. I think it's stupid and inaccurate. The conscious mind is clearly subordinate to the unconscious. Along these lines, I also view Freudian conceptions of the mind to be ridiculous. Freudian ideas are little more than products of sex-obsessed cocaine frenzies. Despite their popularity, I can't take these ideas at all seriously.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs also seems like hogwash to me. Needs are not a pyramid. A more accurate view of human needs can be found in the work of Manfred Max Neef. Max Neef describes needs as being more like an ecosystem than a pyramid.
In a sense, all action can be considered an attempt to satisfy unconscious needs. Sometimes, there's strong alignment between an unconscious need and conscious awareness of this need. The need to eat comes to mind. But sometimes, the unconscious seems to be attempting to satisfy needs that are unknown, or even contradictory. These instances can produce behaviors ranging from minor self sabotage to total self destruction.
Into young adulthood, I was very self destructive. Clinically, I was experiencing symptoms of active alcoholism and undiagnosed mental illness. But clinical terms don't really capture life. What I actually experienced during that time was a mess of conflicting unconscious needs which couldn't be reconciled with the tools at my disposal. My need for bodily wellbeing conflicted with my need to fit in with unhealthy peers. My need for material wellbeing conflicted with my need to unprofitably explore the unknown. My need for psychological wellbeing conflicted with my need to participate in a totally crazy society.
Unable to reconcile such conflicts, I sought to annihilate the self in which these conflicts occurred. I got blackout drunk and behaved abominably. I forwent sleep until the world ceased to matter. I engaged in other high risk activities. Eventually, I had an accident, falling through a broken outdoor staircase, passing from the second floor of an apartment building to a basement level entryway in the blink of an eye.
This accident messed up my body in all sorts of ways and coincided with the onset of cluster headaches. These headaches took complete control of my life. Suddenly, I couldn't drink alcohol or eat most foods. I couldn't work or socialize. All I could really do was sit and be tortured, repeatedly, surrounded by people who couldn't possibly understand what I was going through.
Most of my life was consumed by the illness. What little remained was all that I had to work with. This taught me to become extremely intentional with my time. It also revealed the great extent to which I was thinking and acting unconsciously. So I began working in partnership with my unconscious. And a big part of that involved getting clear about the specific unconscious needs that were using me as a means to seek satisfaction.
I found that my need to participate was associated with a subtle psycho-physiological feeling. So was the need to be protected. The body knows when it's hungry for food. It also knows when it's hungry for other things.
Unconscious needs often cannot be satisfied. But the unconscious mind can sometimes be convinced to accept a symbol in lieu of satisfaction. Taking even the smallest action toward meeting an unconscious need can reduce the need's intensity, at least temporarily. This creates space for the need to be examined and more deliberately met.
There's a strange kind of freedom inside this space of deliberation. It's like being on a boat and heading where you want while adjusting the sails to unpredictable weather. Ignoring the weather could be ruinous. So could overreacting to it. But responding to this weather appropriately eventually becomes second nature. Which gets you where you want to go.
