Osian's Auction Catalogue India The Passionate Detachment | February 2001

15 However, before idealism is able to respond to the demands of its materiality, it must be nurtured, away from material friction. This sheltered idealism 1 , emerging from the early years of introspection, will usually harbor a set of values in their most energetic and pristine form. Stray concepts such as the need for freedom and love, the play with uncertainty, the power of fearlessness, eroticism and obsession, the relationship with wealth, the rights for justice and an ethical life, the nature of the whole, a curiosity about the power of violence, all probably flirt through the mind, like isolated islands. The inter-relationships between each value and the outside world, the subtle layers separating each other and underlying each, the vast hidden value-systems embedded in each, the power of each value so as to dominate the mind, all such remain relatively untested. Yet it is this immunity of innocence which will allow sustaining power in later years. Also, this sheltered quality of introspection eventually forces idealism to re-question itself. The process is instigated by the growing wedge between the private and public face which idealism must possess. Feeling a sense of hypocrisy is inevitable as one recognizes the inability of to live up to its own public standards. It is this self-questioning, triggered by the material imperatives of an idealism, which invites pain to play its pivotal role in the evolution of idealism. Pain can be seen as the first child of idealism trying to impregnate its materiality. With time it becomes the most potent trigger in helping to awaken an idea into action; it most fully helps the mind to see things as they are in fact. However, it also carries the heaviest burden of negative energy, creating dilemmas and hesitations at each threshold. It is a most precarious process which allows pain to be transformed into playing a positive role. The Role of Creativity This requestioning process is essentially the handling of uncertainty. Coming to terms with uncertainty implies there will always remain a continual sense of incompleteness. The issue lies in accepting the incompleteness, while maintaining one’s motivation. The other key aspect of handling uncertainty is the need to absorb contradictions. It is here that the role of artistic creativity can be best appreciated. Through the family of values it cultivates, such as detachment and fearlessness, the creative process fosters the absorption of contradictions. The main factor which allows creativity to fulfil this role is the ability of the artistic mind to play with uncertainty a bit longer, without imposing a preconception. The process of transforming questions into answers, intangibilities into tangibilities, formlessness into form, must include sufficient openness so as to allow each created answer to reveal its fuller question, each created form to reveal its fuller formlessness. This ability to let uncertainty be, of waiting with it, giving it the freedom to be itself, is the root of creativity. In the act of giving, one gives oneself the space and time to mature, while simultaneously absorbing the intensity of the moment. In this tussle evolves the wisdom which realises that all activity is attracted towards non-activity. Change and permanence, detachment and motivation, energy and quiet, are all visualised afresh, their existence re-examined. Each value now begins its transformation in this awakening. A tussle between action and non-action, reaction and steadiness, all create a new rhythm. The ability to sustain this pendulum flow is the basis of the transformation. Just as a pendulum is to time, this oscillation needs to be sustained if the rhythm of transforming idealism is to be absorbed. The private and the public, the tangible and intangible, the self and the selfless, these all have elusive differences as idealism awakens to its materiality. Walking this abyss of wafer-thin proportions is the nature of the awakening. In sustaining the pace of the oscillation lies the nature of continual flux, the play with uncertainty... Herein lies a fundamental characteristic of an infrastructure-builder. The integrity with which this oscillation is sustained will determine the success and nature of later action. It will provide the clarity so as to help idealism institutionalise itself. An example of this oscillation process is the tussle which exists between detachment and passion, involvement and quiet. To be the creator, the spectator and the unconcerned, all in one, simultaneously, slipping into each, is the issue. This helps one realise that each is genuine, and yet each is inadequate, for the real nature is that which allows this slipping into each, that which allows the fusion of the creator, spectator, and the unconcerned. This substance which allows the creator-spectator-unconcerned continuum to exist in us, is the reality the individual is trying to grasp. It is required for one mind to harness all perspectives, to inculcate the respective attitudes and then try to fuse each into this oscillating balance whereby all contribute towards nurturing the continuum. In sustaining this holistic attitude lies the eventual success of the infrastructure-builder. 2 In understanding the transformations which a creative mind cultivates within a set of values, such as detachment and fearlessness, we can understand more clearly the process by which idealism needs to evolve so as to be able to transform itself into material attitudes which in turn harness the institutionalising process of such values.