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Happyview*23: L’Atelier de Charenton

by Joanna on 20/01/2011

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L’année 2010 aura été l’année d’une découverte phénoménale pour moi.

Au début de l’année dernière, encouragée par un ami, je me mets à dessiner et j’en parle sur ce blog.

La lubie me passe, mes curiosités étant sans fin. Ce n’est qu’après le forum Happylab, en juin, que la fièvre est montée. Une fièvre parce que ça n’avait rien de raisonnable. J’étais irrésistiblement attirée par ma porte. J’ai peint des heures, souvent en pleine nuit, accroupie. J’ai peint ma porte.

Ca a été une aventure. Il a fallu que je fasse entièrement confiance à mon envie. Il a fallu ne pas écouter les petites voix qui crient “tu ne sais pas dessiner, c’est puéril ce que tu fais”. Une fois que ma main est partie du centre de la porte, je n’ai fait que suivre ses désirs de liberté,  la couleur suivante apparaissant dans mon esprit automatiquement. Pas de but, pas de technique, juste le plaisir et peu à peu des formes apparaissent, des personnages se forment devant mes yeux ébahis.

Quand je reprends la peinture je sens des fois la peur de tout gâcher. Pause. L’envie de continuer à révéler les personnages, les paysages est plus forte. C’est comme la vie, il faut y aller, expérimenter, se laisser porter et écouter grand ses sensations.

Après la porte, je ne pouvais m’arrêter alors j’ai peint sur toile puis ce sont les couvertures de cahier Moleskine qui sont devenues mon terrain de jeu. Vendredi, mes amis m’ont offert une grande toile noire et mon week-end a été englouti, mes rêves détournés, j’ai peint le coeur gourmand des délices de l’art.

Le but du jeu, comme le bonheur, n’est pas de produire la plus belle œuvre. Le chemin, l’exaltation, la présence au moment fait la richesse de cette expérience. Elle est hors temps, hors jugement. Ensuite qu’elle produise une œuvre jugée belle ou non est une toute autre affaire qui appartient à l’autre.

Quand Karine Wenders m’a mise en contact avec Sandrine de l’Atelier de Charenton, j’y ai vu une clé. Pourquoi découvrir si tard que j’aime peindre? Surement parce que comme beaucoup on m’a inculqué qu’il faut faire ainsi et comme ça et que moi, et bien moi, je ne suis pas très douée!

A l’Atelier de Charenton la chanson est bien différente, on y apprend la liberté.

Je vous laisse découvrir la vidéo et je vous invite à découvrir votre créativité, à dépasser vos préjugés sur ce que vous pouvez faire et ne pas faire (si vous n’êtes pas déjà un créatif révélé bien sûr)

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Schopenhauer on happiness

by Joanna on 10/09/2009

schopenhauerArthur Schopenhauer was born on February 22, 1788 in Danzig, Poland. He had a pessimistic personality. He said for example: ““Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom”

Arthur was not a happy fellow so what a surprise to find after his death, in his personal notes, a manuscript in the writings entitled “Die Kunst, glücklich zu sein” which could be translated as the art of being happy. I couldn’t find any trace of it in English bibliographies. Schopenhauer says that we can’t be happy but at least we can follow rules to avoid pain. He lists 50 rules. The first rule is not to aim for an unachievable happiness but to manage your life as well as you can by avoiding unnecessary suffering for you and others.

The second rule is to avoid jealousy by comparing with others (hum that sounds like positive psychology)

The third rule is to not drift from your natural tendencies. Some are creative others contemplative. Don’t go against your nature

An Other rule is to be self-sufficient: “Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure, are by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.”

In his essay “on the wisdom of life” from Schopenhauer final work, “Parerga und Paralipomena” (1851), Arthur sees health as the most important factor of happiness that can’t be traded for honors.

“For, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care. There can be no competition or compensation between these essential factors on the one side, and honor, pomp, rank and reputation on the other, however much value we may set upon the latter. No one would hesitate to sacrifice the latter for the former, if it were necessary. We should add very much to our happiness by a timely recognition of the simple truth that every man’s chief and real existence is in his own skin, and not in other people’s opinions; and, consequently, that the actual conditions of our personal life,—health, temperament, capacity, income, wife, children, friends, home, are a hundred times more important for our happiness than what other people are pleased to think of us: otherwise we shall be miserable.”

“It is the possession of a great heart or a great head, and not the mere fame of it, which is worth having, and conducive to happiness”

Schopenhauer has been influenced by Buddhism and believed in the limitation of your desire to lower suffering. Life was for him a painful road and his (limited) happiness rested in avoiding, reducing, coping. None the less, his rules are good guidelines to live a happy life.

I leave you with a sample of a six part series on philosophy presented by philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers and their ideas about the pursuit of happiness. This episode is about Schopenhauer.

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Click on the painting to discover the artist Bob Row and his gallery of portraits :)

You can also read this very good article about Schopenhauer and happiness.

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Happily ever after!

by Joanna on 25/06/2009

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I live a happy life.

To my biggest surprise nothing can through me off for a long time. Deceptions, feeling of rejection, anger, sadness, loneliness, nothing seems to stick anymore.
I remember being in New York. I was alone in the penthouse apartment floaded with sunlight. I was crying. I would sit on the stairs and cry. I would stand up at the window, look at the statue of liberty and whip. I would lay down on the sofa and stare at the ceiling.
I had it all! The apartment, the car, the outfit of a life on track. I had the fun nights in Manhattans, the home cooked meals with friends, the gym, the paycheck.  And still sadness was sticking.

Now I can see that I was feeding it with interpretations, internal stories, my outlook on life.

So what is the difference?

I believe mainly two things have changed:

First, like if I had developed the negative roll, I see life differently.  I see all situations, bad or good as opportunities, opportunities to experience and learn. And, if there is something I enjoy in life it is learning. This shift didn’t happened in a day  but  really started when I said to myself “Is there an other way to experience life?” That question alone brought to me a series of encounter that changed my life and my vision.

Second. Now, I use my emotions like if they were little flashing lights on a car board. Sadness is not a companion anymore; it is merely a nice refreshing shower.

I still experience uncomfortable situations and I feel emotions rising and kicking but I know two reassuring things:

One: I have been through it before and I overcame it.

Two: if it’s too overwhelming, I can retreat and switch it off. Yes just like that. I go to my place, I sit and I am me doing the best I can. I will deal with it but I take a little time off. As soon as I am alone, I am peaceful. It’s like those white flags or like we say when we are kids: “Thumbs up” (at least here in France). When you are in a game, it means, stop. Usually you stop the game to discuss the rules.
Now when I feel a negative emotion, I know it’s a signal. What does it mean? What triggered it? Is it an interpretation, an old vision or do I have to change a way, act differently?
I still have old patterns glued to my brain but even if I don’t stress on it, I know I will tackle it when the time is right.

I can’t give a definition of happiness yet but contrasts in my life give me hints as how to describe it.

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Happiness urgently needed

by Joanna on 04/06/2009

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Follow the link if you can’t access the video : HOME

Today I went to the library to buy a book and I came back with five!

I went by the personal development section and discovered loads of books about happiness. It surprised me because I never realized there was so much literature on happiness.
You have to know that here, in France, people can be very cynical about happiness. Happiness is for fools or it’s a sect’s slogan. When you surf the web, most of the people writing, talking about happiness are Australian or American (it seems)(well I don’t speak Tamoul or Chinese).

But lately my beliefs are shaken. Everywhere I go, the topic comes up. Just this week, I was helping a friend at a festival and happiness was on everybody’s lips at conferences. Then a couple of days later, I was at a red light on my bike, and just there was a friend eating at a terrasse. I joined him for half an hour, only to discover that he was organizing happiness diners. They invite specialists on the subject like Ruut Veenhoven director of the World Database of Happiness and editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies and discuss.

I was in shock. A happiness tribe!

Since there is prolific information on the web about happiness (see my blogroll for exemple), I could contribute better by investigating what French have to bring to the table. I have a few people in mind and I hope that even if France is the world champion antidepressant consumer, it has the capacity to produce great happiness thinkers. To be continued…

In the meantime, he is not talking directly about happiness but he is French and I see an evident link between how we treat our planet and the fundamentals of happiness. As I exposed in a former post, when you start to investigate the subject of happiness, more stuff (when basics needs are met) is not doing the trick. Happiness doesn’t lie in having more, wasting, war, exploitation… Once every man will discover his inner happiness, the need to destroy our environment will not be the logics anymore. Well that’s what I believe but It seems I am an utopist ☺

So don’t miss this sublime movie that has been released for free in several languages for us to team up and improve the life of each one of us.

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