Holistic-Personal-Development.com

No matter what creative work I’m engaged in, I have found this advice from Leonardo da Vinci to be imperative:

“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci

Whether it is writing an essay, designing a website, or remodeling the house, getting away from the work, at least for a few hours, gives fresh perspective on it. The awkwardness of a sentence or the lack of symmetry in a design becomes obvious facts with the interval of a little time and distance.

So it is with life, as well. We become blind to the obvious. We become conditioned. A friend of ours who has been helping with the remodeling of our house pointed out that our refrigerator was noisy, so much so that it was driving him crazy when he worked in the kitchen. My wife and I both said we hadn’t noticed. He said we had become desensitized. Then we started to notice it. So we bought a new refrigerator.

Over the last several days I was working a website design project for a client. About 4:30 pm yesterday I called my client to have her look at what I thought was an elegant design. She wasn’t home and I had to go out for the rest of the evening. But when I came back, I could see flaws in the design, the lack of proportion, the wrong use of color. It’s as if I went out and got a new pair of eyes. With the new perspective, I made the required changes. She called this morning just as I finished.

This taking time away from the work is crucial for purity of vision. Leonardo was often misunderstood as not being a hard worker because he was often seen relaxing even when he was on a commissioned creative project with a deadline. If someone questioned him on when he was getting back to work, he would say he was working. It was part of his creative process to get away from the project in this way.

In life, we go through the same routines day in and day out. It seems obvious at the time that everything we do is necessary and proficient, but when we get away from our routine, we gain objectivity. We bring consciousness into it.

We see only as truly as we live, and to live, we must have balance. We are not solely intellectual beings anymore than we are solely emotional or physical beings. How can a person have perspective if his or her life is out of perspective? How can a man perceive beauty if he doesn’t possess beauty within himself?

I can hear some of you saying, “Perhaps, but what does that have to do with me? I’m not an artist.” To that I say, “But you are.”

All of us are the architects of our own lives, the composers of our souls’ expression, the authors of our own drama, the interpreters of our own meaning. To the extent that we raise or lower the spirits of others with our words or actions is the measure of our artistic influence. The example of a life supremely lived is as aesthetic as any work of Monet, Vermeer, Debussy or Bach.

Even if you don’t see yourself as an artist, you still make decisions every day that shape the life you are living. And each decision is no different than a brushstroke of a master painter. With every moment we are making art.

Therefore shape it with symmetry, with balance, with harmony. These are the essentials to the experience of joy, of relaxation, of purpose and meaning. When we lose that perspective it is like trying to paint blindfolded.

The advise of Leonardo applies to you too. Get away. Take a break. Meditate. Go on a vacation. The quality of your life will be enhanced with the fresh perspective. When you start to see the creative expression in what you do inspiration has a chance to set in. And that’s when great things start to happen.

Related article: Was Leonardo da Vinci a Buddhist?