Significance

At the market
charcoal on Manila
18 x 24 inches
Barbara Muir © 2009
(Sometimes before I begin a painting
I sketch to get to know the subject.
This isn't entirely accurate, but
it's getting there and I like the
mood)

For the past few days as I worked on my paintings
and drawings, gathered material together for submission
to a major art show, and driven through the countryside
to school today to visit some of my friends there, I've
had a word surface in my brain again and again.

Significance.

No. I'm not going through a life crisis...this year.
Significance was just the word my brain stuck on.
Roving around the net to read what other people say
about the word I notice that people frequently separate
the idea of a life of significance from a life of success.

So what's the opposite of a significant life? I'd call it
treading water. When you tread water you don't move
forward or back -- but you do keep afloat. Metaphorically
it's like the hamster ratcheting around the same little
wheel all day. After thinking it through I've decided that
significance is about meaning. The people who test
your happiness at the University of Pennsylvania
identify a feeling of meaning in life as one of the factors
necessary for a happy life. So that's where I ended
up.

Open the door to meaning in your life, and it's like a
flood of light comes through -- knowledge, love,
a profound connection to the planet and the wonders
of the universe, artistic inspiration, and significance.
Then miraculously happiness can come in too.
So I'm going to quit worrying about the fact that
my front door is not yet painted Feng Shui red,
and let it be the door to meaning and significance
even in its battered blue state.

Or I may just walk through it and pick the yellow
pansies growing on the front porch steps.
Today those pansies are significant.

Have an understanding-the-significance-of-your-life day