The Life of Mastery

“An art student must be a master from the beginning. That is, he must be a master of such as he has. By being now master of such as he has, there's promise that he will be a Master in the future.”

- Robert Henri

Mastery is an elusive concept. On one hand, it sweeps us into a deep sense of awe, wonder and reverence. The mysterious and genius masters like Rembrandt, Einstein, Beethoven, Darwin turn the world over its head and leave it transformed and evolved. On the other hand, the legacies also claw at our insecurities and fears. Their talents and skills seem to transcend human standards. They are like superhuman beings, with an impossible dedication to their craft, a capacity to ascend normal human intelligence and perception - as if their talents and intelligence have been bestowed upon them by a higher power to achieve a larger-than-life destiny.

Covering under our insecurities, we produce a remarkable flare of justifications for their success - “they began so early! They were naturally gifted. Their craft and intelligence was a gift from the Gods - they were created to fulfil a cosmic destiny… these destinies belong only to a chosen few, not to common folks like you and me.” We conveniently ignore their dedication, their struggles, their stubborn resilience, their sacrifices and the price they paid for Mastery - and instead hold on to the finesse and mystery they exude.

Mastery: The Secret

My training in fine arts began at the age of 28, after spending a decade freelancing in unrelated fields. Convinced that I am coming to the field with a disadvantage of starting late, I was consumed by a hunger and desperation to learn fast. I scuttled from artist to artist - the old and the new masters in the field. As I gathered knowledge and skill, I began noticing something curious. Regardless of their varied backgrounds, belief systems and styles, these extraordinary artists embodied mastery not only in their art, but in the very breath of their lives. Every word, every stroke, every thought, movement and action coming from them is masterful - executed to the highest capacity in the moment.

Awed by the simplicity of the concept, I attempted emulating their philosophy and code of conduct in my own life - and my art improved overnight. I realised that the secret to mastery is to not consider Mastery as the end goal, but as a lifestyle.

“Mastery is not the end goal. Mastery is where we live and breathe every second of every day. It is a lifestyle.”

Mastery: the Lifestyle

Mastery begins with an awareness and a belief: an unbiased awareness of what you know and who you are in the moment, and a belief that your performance is under your command. You might not be able to create a Sargent just yet, but you are capable of executing to the best of your ability and creating a piece that is masterful in its fundamental strokes and melodies. There are a few things that reoccur in the workflow of the masters:

1. Intention.

Intention is the feeling tone of the vision that made you pursue your passion to begin with - its a reason, a purpose, a compulsion of learning, creating, discovering. It is your North Star through the journey to Mastery. It is the fuel that determines your performance through every moment of every training session.

Intention operates on various levels:

A) Long term intention is the vision you pursue day after day - it is the destination, the dream, the ultimate desire.

B) Short term intention is the vision of particular projects that you are working on. It can be something as direct as finishing a painting in your unique style, or as complex as learning how to paint portraits from the scratch.

c) Intention of the session is the vision of what the session is to accomplish.

Through following layers of intention, a work of art is designed carefully, slowly, deliberately - never dilly-dallying, never loosing purpose.

A session that is aimed at improved the C minor scale on the piano, with a larger intention of being able to play a Sonata in a month, with the vision of becoming a maestro misgoverned by efficiency, by a deep, patient passion for the craft and a dedication to excellence. Every note played with the vision in mind is controlled and careful, graceful and subtle, alive with the echo of the conscious desire of the artist.

Without intention, practice becomes a repetitive mass of blob snuffling and shuffling all around, landing to places by chance. With intention, every second you spend on your craft is alive, efficient, dynamic and most of all, fulfilling.

2. Focused attention

All the vision and intention in the world is nothing but fluff unless it is backed up by focused attention and dedicated practice. Focused attention is a skill that needs to be practiced, cultivated. It involves unplugging yourself from all devices and distractions and dedicating all faculties of the heart, mind and soul to practice in the present moment. It means stilling your mind through meditative practice. It means turning your phone off while working and cleaning up your desk and even your wardrobe. It even means clearing out the negative distractions from your social network so that you have space for a clean, pure living.

Focused attention opens channels of receptivity and curiosity within your brain and your life, solidifying neural pathways to convert slow, deliberate, technical practice to intuition, creating a “flow” state, triggering epiphanies and allowing talent and skill to flourish into genius.

3. Unbiased awareness

Mastery requires a deep, constant awareness of the moment. Awareness extends from alertness of the brain to a relaxed but acute knowing of the body, breath and the world around you. An awareness of self, purpose and movement leads to holistic intelligence: an intelligence that far exceeds the logical capacity of the brain. Through awareness comes immersion and reflection: the ability to be completely engrossed in your art - with not just your mind, but also through your body, breath, heart and soul, and the ability to see the genius and the compromised in your performance and course-correct accordingly.

Awareness is very different from Egoness, which is the constantly nagging, doubting , demotivating voice in your head. While a lot of artists fall into the trap of using negative criticism as the propeller to help them create and prove their worth, that is a dark and bitter path to creativity. Operating with Egoness simply gives the reins of your creativity into the hands of society, social standards and opinions - limiting your creativity to reaction and resistance and robs you of real creative freedom. Instead, an unbiased awareness lets you dive deep into your being and extracts creative impulses from your memories, experiences, emotions - from the subtle whispers of life within.

Awareness, combined with focused attention and intention also forms a brilliant feedback loop. Unlike the self-judgment criticism that insists on melancholiac “shit, the line got distorted again. I’m not good. I don’t even know why I keep trying. I can never become great at art”, a conscious feedback loop states with curiosity “ah! The line wobbled at the end when I shifted my wrist. Perhaps I need to move from the shoulder throughout, and maintain a medium pressure on the pencil. Maybe I can even pull the pencil off the sheet in a flourish and give it a calligraphic look.” The two approaches produce a completely different result not only at the end of the practice session, but also in the trajectory of mastery itself.

4. Emergence

When the code of conduct of Mastery is put together through intention, focus and deep awareness, Mastery simply ‘emerges’ from the core of an artist.

Mastery is not something that the artist chases - a chase is merely lust and desire to be like someone else. Mastery is a practice, a way of being and existing - a lifestyle. It flows towards a vividly visualised vision of excellence, in a dynamic melody, each note flowing into the next one, evolving with you as you evolve with the process. This process nurtures and challenges you, reaches into the depths of your being to ignite your potential as an artist, as a human being. It harnesses all your love, dedication and desire for your craft… and as ripples of creative intelligence radiate from you and integrate with your own experiences, memories, knowledge and skills - with your being ness - they accept into themselves your essence and mould it into a masterpiece that is uniquely, completely you.

This is a masterpiece only you could have created. It is not the result of a chase, a war of techniques or response to external coercion or internal resistance. It is a spiritual unfolding, a process that you fall in love with along the way.

How You Do One Thing is How You Do Everything

When mastery in the moment becomes an attitude, a code of conduct, it overflows into all aspects of your life. Your life comes alive with a vivid vibrance, a resonance of your vision fo a fulfilled, blissful life. Even if you experience these moments for a fraction of time during every practice session, a collection of them, one drop at a time, creates a small puddle that turns into a creek, and then a stream, until eventually it takes over your life, turning into a bountiful river, flowing endlessly through time way beyond your life, magical and alive.