Free art piece idea #56
This one is called “Maslow’s pyramid of sins”.
In his TED talk “should you live for your resume or your eulogy?”, David Brooks mentions the concept of a “signature sin”. A sin we grow used to and aware of in our behavior. One which, if we choose to confront, unlocks a trapped potential for growth:
“I was reminded of a common response through history of how you build a solid Adam II, how you build a depth of character. Through history, people have gone back into their own pasts, sometimes to a precious time in their life, to their childhood, and often, the mind gravitates in the past to a moment of shame, some sin committed, some act of selfishness, an act of omission, of shallowness, the sin of anger, the sin of self-pity, trying to be a people-pleaser, a lack of courage. Adam I is built by building on your strengths. Adam II is built by fighting your weaknesses. You go into yourself, you find the sin which you’ve committed over and again through your life, your signature sin out of which the others emerge, and you fight that sin and you wrestle with that sin, and out of that wrestling, that suffering, then a depth of character is constructed. And we’re often not taught to recognize the sin in ourselves, in that we’re not taught in this culture how to wrestle with it, how to confront it, and how to combat it. We live in a culture with an Adam I mentality where we’re inarticulate about Adam II.”
Brooks, however, makes it sound as if this is a one time fight or battle. That we only have one signature sin to wrestle with. My take is that there are many and that there might be a pattern among us in which of these sins we take on first and which ones we delay tackling.
The way these sins stack up might actually map onto Maslow’s pyramid of needs. This art piece creates a high definition take on sins in a science-like, seemingly research grounded approach:
- Sin #1 — Being mean, being a bully or being violent. This one is closely related to the sin of anger Brooks mentions.
- Sin #2 — Being a snob. Snobbism is a form of intellectual bullying whereas we reduce a person to a single attribute and disregard their richness. It’s somehow related to the sin of selfishness in the quote above. But maybe it isn’t.
- Sin #3 — Being a perfectionist. This is a form of auto-bullying whereas we judge ourselves for not being good enough. This is related to the sin of self-pity. But I’ll let the artist dig more into that when the time comes.
- Sin #4 — Being cool. This stems from the inability to be vulnerable.
- Sin #5 — Being. “I am” is the toughest sin to tackle. The idea that we are something is at the root of many of our struggles.
This pyramid can then be used to educate children and give clarity to seekers about the path ahead.
