by Marty Coleman | Mar 6, 2017 | Evil - 2017, Thomas Hardy |
Being Framed vs Framing an Idea
You have heard of the term ‘being framed’. It’s when evidence is constructed and planted to make an innocent person appear guilty of a crime. I thought about this as I drew this illustration of evil. However, this quote uses the term ‘framed’ in a different way than that. In this context it means organizing of one’s thoughts. You put a frame around an idea of event and what is inside the frame makes sense and what is outside the frame is irrelevant. It allows you to see something clearly without a lot of distractions.
So what do the two definitions of ‘framed’ have to do with each other and what do either of them have to do with evil? Both are built to clarify. One to clarify a lie, one to clarify a truth. Both allow someone to control a narrative of events. Both limit information; one for the better, one for the worse. And both are how we allow evil into our lives.
Blinded
One of my favorite lyrics is in a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, ‘Sometimes we are blinded by the very thing we need to see.’ It perfectly sums up what happens when evil is right in front of us but we don’t see it. It’s most often because we don’t want to see it. When that happens we will often rationalize (frame) what we are doing in other terms. It’s innocent, it’s an opportunity, it’s fun. We reframe it so it’s not evil, it’s something else.
Brutal Honesty
In other words we fool ourselves. How do we avoid that? Brutal honesty is the only way. Now, when you are talking to or about someone else, brutal honesty is usually a code word for just being brutal to satisfy your own desire to feel superior. But when the looking in the mirror brutal honesty is the only way to avoid fooling yourself. Admitting your weaknesses, your inclinations, your habits, and your blind spots is how you stay safe. It allows you to frame yourself accurately.
Trusted Framers
That doesn’t mean you have to tell the world about it all. But it probably would help to have a trusted friend or two who really know you, that you can admit who you really are and who will help you build frames that are accurate and real.
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“A resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.” – Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928, English novelist – Best known as the author of ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ and ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’.
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by Marty Coleman | Mar 2, 2017 | Evil - 2017, Mary Shelley |
What is evil?
I really like this quote because it explains very succinctly why so many atrocities happen in the world. People want to believe in demons and devils, evil people purposely doing evil things. But in my experience, and in my reading of history, biography and sociology, this is not true. People almost never are attempting to do evil. What they are attempting to do is find happiness.
Intent vs Effect
But wait, isn’t that completely perverse? Yes it is. And that is why it is important to understand. Evil doesn’t come from evil people. Evil comes from (in most cases) normal people doing things they think will make them happy. Take for example the illustration above. Is the drunk driver who plows down a group of pedestrians intending to do evil? No, he or she is not. They are attempting to feel good. Are they doing that in the right way and will it really make them feel good? No, it won’t. But that is not the point. The point is their course of action is driven not by a desire to do evil but by a desire to be happy. It is intent vs effect.
When Point of View Matters
Let’s take another example that isn’t quite as clear-cut. A white southerner in the US likes to drive around with the confederate flag waving from his car. His intent, in his mind, is to celebrate his proud heritage. Celebrating that makes him happy. But the black southerner seeing the car drive by doesn’t see a symbol of a proud heritage, he sees a terrible heritage. One filled with 250 years of slavery and violence against his ancestors and another 100+ years of segregation and oppression after that. That flag symbolizes evil to him, not happiness. Who is right? I know what my answer would be.
Complete Evil
So, when is evil just plain old evil? After all, even Lucifer thought what he was doing trying to basically overthrow God was for the good, right? So if the originator of Evil in the stories of old illustrates this point, then what example of evil doesn’t? Hitler comes to mind, right? But in his mind and the minds of his followers they were pursuing the corporate happiness of their people. All the evil they did, if they were even able to admit there was any evil, was in service of their happiness. That tells you how perverse and twisted the mind can become.
Looking at Ourselves
That is why it’s never enough to go by a person’s intent. Their intent, at least their stated intent, will never be to admit to evil. They will ALWAYS rationalize their behavior and say it’s about something else. That is why one must always look at effect even more than intent. If the effect is evil, that is what matters. THAT is what one has to look at in their heart if they truly want to be devoid of evil. It’s not easy because it demands looking at self in a raw and unflinching way. But it can be done.
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
The full quote is, “No man chooses evil because it is evil, they just mistake it for happiness, the good he seeks.” – Mary Shelley, 1797-1851, English writer
An interesting note: Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, one of the most succinct examples of someone thinking they are doing good when in fact they are doing evil. I read it a few years back and while it has a very dated and florid style to it, it’s well worth a read.
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 24, 2017 | Chuck Close, Discovery - 2017, Kristen Hannah |
Creative Flow
Recently I had a person ask if I ever have a creative block. I said no, and went on a bit about why. But I this quote explains my way of thinking perfectly.
- “The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” – Chuck Close
That is what happens with my napkin drawings, with my sketchbook drawings, with almost everything I do creatively. In this drawing I started with the quote. In my napkin drawings the quote is my inspiration point. It is the one that causes something to occur to me. In this case I was on live streaming video talking to some people and thinking out loud about what an illustration of this drawing might entail. The act of visualizing love and war led me to imagine what the participants’ thoughts might be. Then I had my aha moment of the lover and fighter saying almost the exact same thing. But I wouldn’t have come up with that just by sitting around waiting. It was the act of creating the drawing that caused the prompting of my mind.
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“In love we discover who we want to be. In war we discover who we are.” – Kristen Hannah, American author of ‘The Nightingale’ which I highly recommend. Interestingly enough, her FAQ page has a very telling statement at the bottom, similar to Close’s quote above.
- “Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of writers come and go — published and unpublished — and what I’ve learned is that the ones who make it keep writing no matter what. When life is tough, they write; when the kids are sick, they write; when rejections pile up, they write. Are you seeing a pattern? That’s really what this career is ultimately about. Showing up at your computer day after day to hone your craft. Of course you should take classes and read other peoples’ books and study as much as you can, but none of it can ever take the place of daily work.”
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 20, 2017 | Marty Coleman, Sketchbook History Tour |
The Woman Who Sucked on a Straw © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 19, 2017 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Drawing © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 16, 2017 | A. A. Milne, Discovery - 2017 |
Purchase the original | Purchase a print
Forgetful Rememberings
I consider myself to be average level forgetful. Not terrible, but not an iron-clad rememberer either. BUT…just now I remembered I have to be sure to get program shirts for two participants in my running program, something I forgot yesterday. I also have remembered 3 times overnight that I need to bring the car in today for a check up, something I forgot in between those rememberings. I also have forgotten where I have put my gloves or glasses or something, only to find them in a pocket of a coat I haven’t worn in a month.
Disorganized
But does that mean I am disorganized? Not really. It means my organization works well in some ways and not well in others. How does it work well? By having visual reminders. Being an artist, I am all about the visual. If I have a visual signal I more often than not will know what it is I am supposed to be doing, where something might be, when I should be somewhere. Once again, it is iron-clad, but it is reliable. That is why I like having a calendar, writing notes to myself, leaving things out where I can see them.
How does it not work well for me? When I put something out-of-order and don’t give myself a way to later clue myself into what it is I did. This could be wearing a jacket I barely ever wear and leaving my gloves in them when I take it off. It means scheduling something that barely ever happens, like a dentist appointment or car check up, and thinking I will just miraculously remember it a month or six months later. That’s not going to happen.
The Ultimate
Of course the ultimate rememberer for me would be an assistant. Then THEY would be the ones who would have to figure out some kind of trick to remember all the things I need to remember!
How do you remember well?
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.” – A. A. Milne, 1882-1956. English author primarily known for his ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ series of children’s books.
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 13, 2017 | Daniel Boorstin, Discovery - 2017 |
Purchase the original drawing | purchase a print
Sunday School Question
We had an interesting question asked of us in Sunday School this week (adults call it ‘community group’ but I like Sunday School). The question was this: Tell us of a time you changed your mind about something.
The answers were all over the map, from the profound to the trivial. Linda’s was changing her mind about discomfort. She used to hate being uncomfortable and avoided exercise. Then she realized it is always temporary and she can get through it, so she has changed her mind. Mine was changing my mind about what it means to be white. My paradigm about this shifted changed when I read the book, ‘Between the World and Me’ by Te-Nehisi Coates. Another person said he had changed his mind about many social issues, going from being socially conservative to being more liberal. Another person said she had changed her mind about salads and vegetables, having hated them and now liking them. That may seem trivial but I don’t think it is because it will have profound consequences in her health and life.
I thought of this question when I came back and finished drawing this napkin. Discovery is often about changing your mind about something. You believe something, maybe subconsciously and unspoken or maybe not, and then you discover something new and it changes your mind.
The Threat is You
The problem, as this quote suggests, is that discovery won’t come, and certainly won’t be initiated, if you already think you know something so surely that you aren’t willing to contemplate something that would threaten it. Without the willingness to discover, to be enlightened, to consider ideas uncontemplated, you must have a certain level of security and you must have a certain level of interest in something beyond yourself.
It is a very sad, pitiful and especially worrisome when the person unable or unwilling to discover new things is in a position of power over others.
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Daniel Boorstin, 1914-2004, American historian and Librarian of Congress.
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 11, 2017 | Discovery - 2017 |
Man, is this ever an odd one! When I start with a quote I don’t understand very well I usually end up with an illustration I understand even less. Then again the quote is about things hidden and not understood so … never mind, it totally makes sense to me now.
“We discover in ourselves what others hide from us and we recognize in others what we hide from ourselves.” – Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 6, 2017 | Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Discovery - 2017 |
While I was drawing this napkin one of my many millions of live streaming fans said, “If this is true then an accident isn’t an accident at all”. At which point I ordered a ban on this person and had them deported. No, just joking. What I really did was every so gently explain why this person was so egregiously wrong. I then finished the drawing, came into my office and scanned it, then started writing this commentary.
However I had real work to do (work that makes me almost minimum wage I will have you know) and put this aside after writing the first sentence above. I came back to it this morning and can’t remember her reasoning anymore. Probably because it was so non-sensical but maybe because I am old and senile. Anyway, I remember something else she said and I am going to effectively rebut that instead.
She said, “That would mean the first person who saw fire discovered fire”. I said, “No, you are wrong” and deported her. Wait, I already said that joke. Ok, what I really did was say, “No, the first person who found a USE for fire discovered it. It’s not just seeing something that is the discovery, it’s knowing what to do with it that is.”
At that point she bowed down in front of me and pledge eternal faithfulness to my intellectual superiority. Or she said “pfffft” and we moved on to talking about the new shades I had just put up. I can’t remember now.
Drawing and commentary © 2017 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, 1893-1986, Hungarian-American Physiologist. He is the discoverer of Vitamin C.
This original drawing is for SALE and you should buy it! Or, you can always by a print of it for much cheaper.
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by Marty Coleman | Feb 2, 2017 | Illustrated Short Stories, Marty Coleman |
But and And
She was stuck in the middle of somewhere but wasn’t sure where that was and that made her feel lost and scared but she did like her shirt and how her necklace matched her hair but she was self-conscious about her freckles because it was so weird that she had only three of them in each location on her face and she did like her new eyelash extensions that she had never used before but were given to her by her friend who she thought she might see so she wore them but now she doubted it because she didn’t know where she was even though she knew she was somewhere and then her ears started burning bright red which was not usual because she was usually blue but it made her look around and she saw a teepee in the distance not far from a big city that only confused her because she knew she had somewhere to go now but wasn’t sure where because they both looked attractive and both her ears were burning meaning both places were talking about her so she decided to wait and think about it some more.
The End
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