Notes on Art and Magic

Hey there my dear friends,

I am still gathering material for my Collection of Beauty, and it is growing rapidly... maybe a bit too rapidly. Every other day, I hunt for beautiful art, finding things from Wikimedia Commons, learning about artists I had never known before, following a trail of breadcrumbs, and seeing where my own curiosity leads me, while assembling a staggering amount of inspiration.

Humanity has produced so much art over even just the last couple hundred years, it's absolutely mindboggling. And this is only a small sliver of already pre-curated greatness, stuff that is important enough to merit its own Wikipedia page. I can't begin to fathom just how much more art there is out there: created by more amateur painters, people who just did it for fun. Art that is now forever lost to the churning voids of time.

Something scary about our day and age is that all this information is preserved, and the internet allows us to come into contact with it. We can, at least in theory, see this massive amount of creation going on, and even a tiny glimpse of it can be massively disorienting and overwhelming. Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, Etsy, Dribble, there are just mountains of art created, a literal flood, day in and day out, sustained by hundreds of millions of people, each with their own lives, just as rich and meaningful as our own. And they all try to be seen, to be heard, to show that they too feel and that this somehow matters even though it doesn't in the grand scheme of things. A cacophony of voices screaming how all of this is unfair and nobody chose to be here, and yet here we are... thoughts like these break me, but in a beautiful way.

When I look at paintings, there is often this recognition that hits me in the face: that there was another mind over there, back then, separated in time and space. And yet, through that separation, the other person produced an artifact, something to reach through, besides all odds, and communicate that they too had the same complex human emotions that I do now. That they noticed, that they cared.

Maybe they even struggled with similar problems in their life: love, loss, loneliness. Moments of intimacy, friendship, wonder, their own premonitions of death, repeating motifs of the macabre, the heroic, the divine, the scary, the tranquil, the aspirational, the bizarre, and the complex and endlessly fascinating. It all finds expression. Sometimes—and that is what makes art so great—they were able to show how they felt this too, all of it, they knew what it meant to be human. And through their work, they communicate these internal states, preserving how they felt for others, for us to see. Inviting us to feel with them, like there is a direct link from our mind to theirs.

And so I find myself looking at all of this, finding beauty in the same things that they found beauty in back then: Depictions of morning light, twirls of clouds, how the blades of grass in a field move, how beautiful the snowstorm was outside, how the flowers grew, and the birds chirped. And this awareness of another person's internal life makes me smile and nod a little to myself, as if to show that, "yes, I agree, life really is, like that".

I am also staggered by how much influence Christianity had on the arts and how many of the old European masters may have only existed because they were making a living, painting highly devout topics, cross-financed by the church, and how there is this entire aspect to their art as an expression of their faith, an act of worship, something divine. How there is this whole mountain of art, that is explicitly depicting bible scenes, often the same scenes, drawn over and over and over again, by different people through the times, trying to give their interpretation of it, trying to do their best to create this imagery.

Also, I love how connected some of the things I like are: I recently learned that van Gogh was inspired by Japanese Ukiyo-e prints and even reproduced a few of them. Van Gogh himself called his inspiration by Japanese art Japonaiserie. He wrote:

Isn't it almost a new religion that these Japanese teach us, who are so simple and live in nature as if they themselves were flowers?

This whole thing, van Gogh and Ukiyo-e art, is even mentioned in the anime Samurai Shamploo, which I love, but I thought they were doing it as a joke. Turns out that reality is far more interconnected and fascinating than I would think at first glance.

Here are the original ones:

And here are Van Gogh's copies:

Isn't that cool?

On an entirely different note, I've recently started reading the book Buddhism for Vampires. It's a weird and highly interesting blend of folklore, superstitions, magical beliefs, and Buddhist philosophy, all wrapped up into a novel. I like it because lately I have been finding myself drawn to more esoteric ideas, and this seems like a good starting point.

It's full of nice quotes and ideas around buddhism regardless of the magic stuff. A fun one:

About death, the one thing to know is: "Next time you die—pay attention!"

Still, the possibility of magic fascinates me. If it were to exist, that would mean a lot of changes for our current models of how the world works. It would mean that physics is not just a little incomplete at the edges (as seems scientific consensus now) but that it is fundamentally wrong at a deeper level and in a very meaningful way. Somehow, this possibility excites me tremendously.

It's the allure of the unknown and the uncharted that makes me wildly curious and wanting to go explore, even though I remain, of course, highly sceptical. The existence of magic would open up the possibility of shortcuts. Imagine a startup that is using its understanding of magic to create change for the better, even faster. Or a society weaving magic into everyday life, making everything more wholesome for everybody involved. That would be pretty wild and epic.

I guess a big part of wrestling with these ideas is to make sense of what all the hippies I hang out with seem to believe. For the most time, I am entirely neglecting their world views and explain them away with a handy list of cognitive biases. I mean, brains do weird things, and we often want to believe and therefore form superstitions, on our own, very easily .

But there is still a dissonance in my own mind here, where it feels like the number of people believing in supernatural things just seems too big. Cognitive biases and my understanding of psychology can not explain these ideas away entirely. And so "I notice I'm confused" (for those not in the know, this is an hpmor reference).

Often, this sort of confusion is a good compass. It leads me to think that I could be missing something important, and that alone warrants further looking. It suggests a blindspot, that is only visible at the edges, an imprint left by the shape of the things that I know. It feels a bit like there is a gaping hole in my tapestry of knowledge, smack center in my worldview, yet somehow out of sight and impossible to bring into focus.

It suggests that there might be more to the world than scientific reductionism and emergence can explain, and now I can go looking. Maybe with more reading, it will all make sense.

✨ Quote(s) ✨

It is true, of course, that the self is a place of illusion — but it is also the only place where our physical reality and social reality cohere to pull the universe into focus, into meaning. It is the crucible of our qualia. It is the tightrope between the mind and the world, woven of consciousness.

– Maria Popova - (source)

Whether you think death comes once or many times, it doesn’t happen very often. You might as well take an interest in the process and see if you can enjoy something about it.

– David Chapman - (source)

The great writer’s gift to the reader is not better answers but better questions, a greater tolerance for uncertainty, a mechanism of transmuting confusion into kindness, and at the same time a way of seeing the world more clearly in order to love it more deeply.

– Maria Popova - (source)

🌌 Travel 🌌

Pai is still the same crazy place it has been when I arrived a little over two weeks ago, and I am still living in my beautiful, magical hut that floods with sunlight every morning. My desk is filled with a small but growing cabinet of curiosities: flowers, mushrooms, crystals, and snail shells, painting supplies. All of it glistening in the morning sun, catching the light, making me want to create and linger in this place. I paint and write a lot because of this, and it is interesting how much such a small change in my environment is affecting me.

Something else changed over the last few days, too, and it feels like I have arrived here now: like I've got friends that I can go out to have lunch and tea with, to play board games, have good conversations, or even dance with. And with that, I have settled into a small routine, writing in the mornings, painting, going for walks, and taking photos. There is always something else that I could do, plans to be made, stuff to check out (it is Pai after all), but I've arrived and feel at ease, so there is no necessity for any of that. It seems less frantic somehow, less "having to do it all", and more peaceful and calm. I have arrived and think of this place as home, even if it's only a temporary one. Aren't they all?

There is something beautiful about running into new friends here unexpectedly; it's a small place, Pai. But it also makes me a bit sad because now Pai is another place that I want to return to, because of the people who live here. And this somehow further complicates my life by making it just a little more difficult to decide where I want to spend my time. It's just another good place to be throughout the year, adding to the running list of places scattered around the world—places in South America, India, Germany, Portugal, Italy. I know that this is a good problem to have, but it is still a problem. Something about that thought makes me chuckle. A soft and internal smile, thinking that life ain't all that bad if those are my woes and worries.

And in that smile, it feels weirdly certain that this is not the last time that I have been here. I want to see this place come to life with an intense green during the rainier season and experience what it is like then, a bit emptier, more drawn inwards somehow. But still with friends to return to, a social network and connections to cherish—people who will be here when I return, living their lives. That too is an incredibly beautiful thought, that I can come back here whenever I choose to.

🎶 Song 🎶

Kaer Morhen by Marcin Przybyłowicz

Somehow, I find myself listening to the score of The Witcher 3 every once in a while. I've spent countless hours with this game, and many of the beautiful melodies are etched into my memory. This one is particularly salient, and I am listening to it right now, and something about it reflects my mood: contemplative, still, a bit tired but beautiful. Give it a listen.

Youtube Music | Spotify

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That's all for this time. I hope you found this newsletter useful, beautiful, or even both!

Have ideas for improving it? As always please let me know. You can also just reply to this email and I should get those too :)

Cheers,

– Rico