The Masterpiece

Nothing but nothing sums up a life’s work better than that phrase “masterpiece”. It is a designation, sometimes for a collection of work but, more often, for one particular piece that so transcends the level of even the highest attainment of the normal artist.

Leonardo Da Vinci created many masterpieces as did Michelangelo. But a few of them stand above even the stunningly high level of their “normal”. David and the Mona Lisa both possess a transcendent magic about them that just takes your breath away.

It is my deepest belief, one confirmed by years of interactions with extraordinary and quite ordinary human beings, that there lies in every individual the potential for a masterpiece. Perhaps not at the level of skill and artistry that was a DaVinci or a Michelangelo or a Mozart or a Beethoven. But masterpiece is not really about skill attained. It is simply a question of does something transcend our ordinary and thus touch something timeless, something worthy of living after us.

If we look at it like this and ask, “How do we leave a legacy that will bless, enrich and inspire those who may never even meet us personally;” even if this ambition is never attained, will we not have brought about a qualitative shift in the level of our work and the quality of our Iives? Would that not be a worthy aspiration for our lives? Isn’t it possible that would guide us to higher and higher levels of attainment… maybe even the level of a masterpiece?

You betcha!

You see, you can’t actually create a masterpiece! You can’t decide, “Hey, I think I’m going to make a masterpiece today.” Much as we love to imagine doing so, and as much as we love to think we can, the only thing we can do is show up every day at the canvas with paint in our hands and earnestness in our hearts.

Obviously, if you don’t show up or show up unprepared, no masterpiece is going to happen. But, if we do show up regularly, daily, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, we are standing in the only possible place for the masterpiece to materialize.

So, while we can’t force a masterpiece to happen, we can certainly facilitate its potential. To me, the masterpiece isn’t the transcendent quality of the final product. It is the quality of the process.

Having been a musician for many years, I know it takes a long time to get to the place where your output is consistently good. You create a lot of bad, imitative and mediocre stuff along the way, punctuated by the occasional, “Oh my! Look, I did that!” Which is followed by a truckload more of output not worth celebrating. But, over time, the bad is replaced by increasingly consistent good until the normal is quite good.

And then lightning strikes. Something mysterious makes a quantum leap beyond the good and something wonderful appears, seemingly out of nowhere.

I wish I could say there is a neat, repeatable process to it. Our modern approach to progress is always this methodical, process-oriented procedure that consistently guarantees results. Not on this planet.

The first instrument I learned was the drums. After years of playing, my drums sounded terrible. I couldn’t make them sound the way they did for professionals. And I didn’t have access to someone who could show me how. In fact, I didn’t even know enough to ask.

But then one day, all of a sudden, my hands just started moving in the right way, turning the tuning key in a new way. When I finished they sounded fantastic. And from that moment on, they always did. To this day, I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know what was different. Something inside showed up for me. The masterpiece just happened.

What I do know is that every day I showed up the way a master would; curious, relentless, unyielding, resolute, unwilling to take no for an answer. I kept genuinely showing up.

This was even more obviously true when I started writing music.

In college, I fell in love with the piano and started playing it seriously. I had been playing for about a year, but I was not yet very skilled at it. Once again, I kept showing up, hours and hours a day.

One day, without any warning I started hearing music in my head. I was quite shocked but beside myself with wonder. The music I heard was way beyond my limited skills as a pianist and so it was a real struggle to keep up with it and write it all down. This was long before computers or personal recording devices.

That piece, by the way, got me dismissed from the theory class halfway through with an A. The teacher told me I should just go write. And so, I did.

This masterpiece thing doesn’t apply just to the arts. The same thing happened later in life when I was doing computer programming. I found myself in a circumstance where I needed to create a large-scale system that had never been done before. And, at that time, I was not the senior guy.

I remember very well facing this enormously complex thing that had to be built which no one had successfully done before. As I started working through it, I could see all the different permutations. I could see all of the different functions it had to do, all the things it had to account for, all the mistakes that could possibly be made, all the different systems it had to interface with, the way all of the apparently infinite number of variables had to fit together.

I would get an idea and start following it enthusiastically and a little voice inside would say “Nope! That is not going to work.” Reluctantly, I would let go and wait for the next impulse. Then, completely without warning, something clicked, and the voice said: “Go!” And, sure enough, it did. I couldn’t see the whole picture. It was one step at a time. Like walking from New York to Los Angeles, in the dark, with nothing but a flashlight. But that project made the technical press and won a very prestigious award.

All I did was show up at the canvas with my paint. I remember sitting there in utter confusion because it was so big and complex, I couldn’t even hold it in my mind, let alone map every possible variable. I just sat there staring at this mountain of complexity and the blank canvas. Again, without warning and in its own good time, things began to appear on the canvas. The masterpiece began to take shape.

By the way, I never had any training in computer science. My only skill was a willingness to show up at the canvas, my only credential a willingness to be present in the chaos long enough for an answer to appear and an almost naive curiosity. But that has been enough to produce several masterpieces in my life. My masterpieces are not going to be on display at The Met. But they do represent the best of me. They were those moments when my normal was unexpectedly transcended.

But let’s talk about the biggest masterpiece of all.

You!

The stories of great artists who have achieved great things but had completely miserable lives are too numerous to count. The same is true of people who’ve made great accomplishments in business, technology, politics, entertainment, media, every aspect of human life. I personally know very well-known spiritual leaders and major figures in personal development. Outside of their one area of expertise, they are bordering on being incompetent in their lives.

They have unsatisfying relationships with their families and children. Some are tyrants with their employees in their offices. Some require deference and even adulation. Some are really horrible with just about everything in their lives, except that one area of mastery.

It’s not enough to produce a masterpiece in one part and the rest of your life be dysfunctional. People like Mozart and Beethoven were both completely dysfunctional in every aspect of their lives, save one.

I don’t think that’s what most of us really want. We don’t want the masterpiece to be the one area of contentment and self-expression that we embody. We want today and every day to be a masterpiece.

So how do we do that?

Well, let me ask you a simple question and you must answer honestly. How do you show up every day in your life? Not just the big things, the meetings, the presentations, the dates, but also the little bitty, common, too ordinary to notice ways. How are you showing up on the canvas of everyday life? Do you have paint in hand and are not budging from that canvas? Do you act as if the masterpiece could show up at any moment and you have to be paying attention when it does?

Well, let me share what I do. Every morning I focus attention on what is most important for me personally. That is my particular style of meditation. For you, it could be setting an intention, chanting a mantra, doing a gratitude list, reciting a series of affirmations. It could even be a prayer, if you are so inclined.

When you do this, for even 10 minutes, you have started the day, from the moment your eyes open, standing directly in front of the masterpiece of your life. And it will set the tone for the entire day.

It sets the standard by which the rest of the day will be lived. It will balance the unbalanced, provide nourishment to yourself and those around you. You will not get lost in one aspect of your life but will be seeing to all of it. Giving attention to you, your body and health, your family, your romances, your interests other than work.

You see it is really simple. It is the state of mind and state of heart you show up with. We show up with the idea that this moment right here is the masterpiece moment. This moment right here could be the moment where everything changes, where the world gets an inspiration that it’s never ever going to see again.

Remember what I said right in the beginning? You can’t force a masterpiece to happen. All you can do is show up at the canvas with your paints. Not showing up is the only thing that will guarantee that it won’t.

This kind of showing up doesn’t require extra, special energy. It doesn’t require extraordinary skill or talent or genius. It only requires love. Whatever we love, we show up for. Whatever we love gets our attention.

I don’t know anybody who falls in love and then has to force themselves to think of their beloved or want to be with them. You don’t need to schedule into your calendar when you’re going to be reaching out to touch the loved one. You don’t need to do that because your love is self-motivating. It IS the energy of showing up.

Your love for yourself is reflected in your life. That love is your presence in your own life and the lives of others. That presence is your masterpiece. If you’re present in your life, your life will be present with you. If you are present with everything that matters to you and give it the attention it actually needs, you are making a masterpiece every moment.

That is the masterpiece I wish for you.

I’m in my late sixties now and I am still striving for that level of engagement, of connection, of authenticity, of reality because for me, it’s the only thing that matters. I don’t want a monochromatic life. I want the juice.

I don’t want to wait for a future where some really great moment happens. I want a lifetime of great moments. I want an endless series of great moments… little and big. That means finding the greatness in this moment right here. Finding the diamond in the pile of what might look like rubble. It means changing my everyday water into the finest wine.

The masterpiece is in the artist, not the paint. Show up in your life as a master and you will inevitably create masterpieces. They may not be on display at the Louvre but the impact they have on you and those close to you will be no less potent.

And remember, when all is said and done, a life, well-lived is its own reward. And you are the masterpiece.

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of CHOICES Magazine