Tag / gentleness

by Janet

Revision, Revision, Revision!

After publishing my post, Be Gentle, I played around with my illustration a little more and came to like this sketched version better than the original. Maybe it’s a more accurate depiction of “gentleness” because of the softening of the colors. 

I hesitated to share it because you’ve already seen the original, so it seemed kind of redundant, but then I got to thinking about how relevant revisions (tongue twister there) are to life. I mean, we’re always editing and revising ourselves in one way or another. 

My son shared something with me the other night, from Robin Sharma’s book, The Monk who Sold his Ferrari, and it reminded me not only of how people are always working to improve themselves, but of how valuable those changes can be:

One night a father was relaxing with a newspaper in hand after a long day in the office. His son, who wanted to play, kept on pestering him. Finally, fed up, the father ripped out a picture of the world globe that filled a whole page in the paper and tore it in many pieces. “Here son, go ahead and try to put this back together,” he said, hoping this would keep the little boy busy long enough for him to finish reading the paper.

To his amazement, his son returned after only one minute with the globe perfectly reassembled. When the startled father asked how he achieved this feat, the child smiled gently and replied, ”Dad, on the other side of the globe there was a picture of a person, and once I got the person together, the world was okay.”

Another great analogy! It took me back to the start of my (real) recovery, when I came to understand that other people’s attitudes and behavior was not mine to change—but that I had the power to change everything about how I responded to it. 

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Rumi

My pondering also made me realize that the revisions I do to my images and illustrations are important as well, and definitely worth sharing. Nothing is ever really finished, as there is always room for change and improvement.

I think it would be interesting to take one image and revise it several times over the course of a year—just to compare the changes from the first to the last. I might just add that to my list of targets. We’ll see.

Anyway, I think that sums up my thoughts on revisions for tonight.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

Whether it’s art imitating life, or life imitating art… it’s all a work in progress.

Janet

A Little Note. My post title here is a little inside joke. When I worked in real estate, I was often involved in the advertising of homes for sale and we had to come up with headings for all of the properties. One of the most frequently used titles was less than imaginative and often totally irrelevant:

Location, Location, Location!

I don’t know. I thought it was amusing to follow the ‘repeat it three times’ rule. Maybe it’s another one of those ‘after midnight’ things creeping up on me again.

Until later,
Peace & Love!!

by Janet

Be Gentle

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”

Saint Francis de Sales

I’m doubling down today and combining my Word of the Month with a new illustration. What inspired my young woman was a photograph someone saved on Pinterest – for the sake of a wedding dress. As I pondered what came to mind when I looked at her, the first word I thought of was “femininity.” 

I love that word, and the meaning of the word (and I truly wish that I was more feminine sometimes, haha), but I didn’t want my post to remind you of the ongoing debates on gender. That’s the last thing that I want to talk about. 

So, thoughts about femininity reminded me of the word nurturing, which then led me to my chosen word for February: Gentleness.

If there’s one thing that the world needs more of right now, it’s gentleness.

Gentleness is being mild mannered, kind, and soft. A Biblical definition I found was showing care and respect for others in the way that you act and speak. The opposite of gentleness is harsh or severe.

In social psychology I learned how certain circumstances can drastically change a person’s behavior, for the worse. One of those is being in a crowd. A person who might normally be gentle might also be seen shouting, fighting, throwing things, or even destroying property when they get caught up in the crowd. The reason behind the change is that they feel less “personally” responsible, because “everyone else is doing it too.” The other thing is the anonymity—you’re less likely to be recognized in a crowd, so feeling anonymous also feeds into the “crowd think” scenario.

Anonymity also plays a major role in internet behavior. People feel anonymous behind the screen, and they prove everyday how harsh and severe a person can be when they’re feeling anonymous on the internet – just look at social media. I’ve often wondered, when I’ve seen the nastiest of nasty comments on Twitter (or wherever), does that person talk that harshly face to face?

What I’ve been thinking about lately is the whole “mask” thing with COVID. Where I live, masks are still required in public places, and it seems to me that the anonymity of the mask ushered in a whole new wave of harshness and severity. And, sadly, there are days when that includes me. 

I have caught myself speeding through the grocery store, practically knocking people (and their carts) over, in a hurry to stock my cart and be first in line. I’ve also been aggravated with checkers for being too damn slow. I’m not sure it’s because I feel anonymous though—I think it has more to do with wanting to get outside to take the damn mask off so that I can breathe again—but I’m pretty sure anonymity plays a role. Or maybe it’s because we don’t get to see smiles as much. Smiles can be contagious, and that benefit has disappeared behind the mask… along with gentleness.  

So that’s my word and what I’ll be focusing on this month… being a little less harsh and severe and a little more gentle. 

“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.”

Saint Francis de Sales

About the Image

I created the gentlewoman in Illustrator and used a photograph for the background because I wanted her to be surrounded by something real. Then I took it over to Photoshop and added an oil paint effect so that the whole piece would look more surreal. I don’t know… just something different.

A Little Note

I enjoy adding quotes to my posts, but I decided today that I’m not going to get all technical and search the internet for hours trying to find proof of who actually said them. I’ve done that before, several times, and I ended up traveling a bit too far down the rabbit hole. What I’m trying to say is that I can’t guarantee the credits that I give, and – honestly – does it really matter? That being said – don’t quote me. Haha!

Thanks for reading. I hope you found something interesting, useful or enjoyable here!

Until next time,

Peace & Love!