Things I Learned From Staring at a Wall
We’ve all been there. Mindlessly staring into space. Counting ceiling tiles in the doctor’s office during the too-long wait to see someone. Staring at nothing at all while trying to feign interest or recognition for a conversation we aren’t really a part of: Uh huh, yep, what you said.
Sometimes, I find that my mind works best when I’m zoned OUT. This goes against all traditional wisdom that says you must be in the zone for things to flow. You read that right. Completely zoned out — staring at the wall, focusing on a fixed point or on nothing at all. Eyes glazed over because they’re really not seeing anything. Nothing is working in my sensory system except my brain. And it is going a mile a minute.
If you’ve never been paid to sit and stare at a wall, you’ve never been a figure model. Figure modeling, or life modeling, is where you sit (or stand) in a specific pose for an extended period of time so that people can draw you. Like in ye olden times when the only model for a painting was a real, live human being. Sometimes you are clothed, but more often than not, you are nude. This is simply because the artist is there to expand upon their craft, which means they want to see a variety of body types in a variety of poses to practice light, shadow, angles, and all that good stuff that we frequently take for granted.
Figure models can be used for a variety of short gesture drawings (think 30–60 seconds each) or they can be asked to sit for longer portrait sessions that could take up to 20 hours or more (broken into smaller chunks over a period of days or weeks). Every 20 minutes during a longer session, you should get a short break, depending on your needs. BUT the rest of the time, you are left alone to your own thoughts while ensuring you don’t think about that itch on your left foot, because you can’t move for another 19 minutes and counting. The easiest way to deal with the whole situation is to zone completely out, entering an almost trance-like state of indifference to all physical existence.
I know it sounds a little crazy, but it’s true. If you stare at the wall long enough without any input or variety from the rest of your sensory system, your brain will over-compensate and pay hyper attention to things going on within your mind and within your peripheral vision bubble. All this happens while your body feels like it could fall asleep at any moment (and usually, some of your limbs are asleep by the end of it).
When you are unable to do anything but stare and think, a funny thing happens. Your focus shifts outward, the edges of your gaze soften and haze over. You become extremely aware of all things within your field of vision, without needing to focus on any one thing. You see it all and can instantly pinpoint changes without moving or thinking. Someone shook their head in disappointment at the line they just drew? You register that change. Someone picked up a new pencil? You register that as well. Someone smiled? Yep, saw it. Someone looked up at you before returning their eyes to their artwork? Saw that too.
In this scenario, you see all these individual movements because you are taking in the whole picture without focusing on any individual part of it. You can see everything clearly and instantly only because you stopped looking at one specific focus and allowed yourself to experience it all at once. You started seeing the entire forest and simultaneously experienced all the individual trees.
We’re always told to look within and to find everything we need already inside us. But I’m here to tell you that sometimes, we need to focus outward. You can focus outward in time (i.e. making a ten year plan) or in space (where do you want to be? What timeline places you there?).
If we create these outward-focused goals, then we can use them to inform our daily decisions. If you are unsure of something, look at your outward goals. Are the current actions in alignment with those goals? If so, go ahead. If not… Well, then you have to say no or rethink your long-term outward goals.
When we look outward, it is of utmost important that we use that hazy and soft gaze on our goals. We have to let go of judgment of our own intuition and ideas, using the soft and hazy gaze to filter out any hate before we can begin on our path.
Give yourself a timeline for your goals. Do you want to accomplish them within the next month? Year? Decade? Be realistic.
“Most people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a month. We overestimate what we can do in a year, and underestimate what we can accomplish in a decade.”
Matthew Kelly notes in his book, The Long View, that our view of time in relation to goal-setting is skewed. We overestimate what we can get done in a small amount of time but underestimate what we can accomplish in a much longer period of time. It seems backwards, but it makes sense.
It is hard for the human brain to simultaneously process the idea of a long period of time (say, a decade) and the amount of sheer stuff we can do and go through during that period. When you think into the past, it is the same way. What have you accomplished this year? What have you accomplished this past decade? It is much easier to comprehend changes in a smaller scale, but it is very important that we try to think about large-scale anyway.
So, think ahead. What would you like to accomplish next year? Next decade? We do this every December — making New Years’ resolutions before the month is through, and then abandoning most of them before January is out. We don’t lack motivation or determination to succeed. But, we do lack the ability to focus on long term goals as-is. We have to break them down into pieces that we can make sense of and use our short-term focus to our advantage.
Set a timeline — say, a decade. Once you have it, set some goals. Lofty or small, whatever appeals to you. Acknowledge that your end goal will absolutely not follow the path you think it will, and that it might change halfway through to the goal. The in-between stuff is always flexible.
If I set a goal of moving into an RV and touring the country before moving to Hawaii by the end of next year, that doesn’t account for the fact that I need to find a job that lets me travel while paying my bills, or the fact that I need money to get into a school or a house once I get across the ocean to my new island home. It doesn’t account for the many veterinary visits required to move a cat to a rabies-free island state. You can see where I’m going. The goal is to focus outward and then worry about the small stuff as it comes.
Take a minute and really focus on a goal and a general timeline for your life. Look at this goal with a soft gaze — no judgment on its value or its rightness. Just focus on the goal itself and acknowledge that this is your plan. Once you accept it as the plan, it is already happening and in motion.
Once you have your plan, start to allow yourself to see the middle bit moving, shifting in the unknown period before you arrive at point B. There are lessons to learn, baggage to leave behind, skills to master, problems that are as-yet unsolved, or even things you can’t anticipate.
Keep focused on the goal. You are allowing all these unknown things to coexist without judgment in the in-between. Acknowledge them. See them for all they are. Acknowledge that they may change and shift, but that you will 100% have to confront each and every one of them on your path to the end goal.
Don’t freak out! This is not a bad thing, though it feels like you kind of want to run from the overwhelming vastness of the in-between. Your logical mind knows about all these things that stand between you and achieving your goal. Your dreamers’ mind likes to skip this step and tell you that you can become a millionaire and lose 50 lbs overnight. Allow both of these mindsets to coexist and accept the process is not instant; you were always going to come back here.
Breathe, accept, and decide: Is this still your goal? Given all the things you know are in between you and this goal, and all the things you know you don’t even know yet?Is this still IT for you?
Breathe and decide.
You are already on the path, as long as you decide to be. Paths shift and our understanding of life shifts daily. Accept and embrace the ebb and flow.
Now: Get real.
Write down the possible problems you saw ahead of you on this path.
The physicality of writing is like casting a spell. Ink, thought, paper (napkin, post-it, whatever). Craft your ingredient list for this magic called your future.
Breathe. And decide.
