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Holy Innocents

( Size: 17" x 30" Oils )

A painting solely to commemorate the "Innocents" of War. The Godly figure skyward is awaiting to receive this "Being's" emaciated but tranquil body and soul, so as to place it in a hyper-physical state of ideal perfection.

Holy Innocents

E.W.Powell, 11.7.98. Painting completed 1990/9l.

Complexity comment:

Innocence is a beautiful state, reminiscent of children and wide-eyed wonder. Yet when we look at the world around us we can be forgiven for wondering, what happened to our childish delight in life ?

But it is still there, hidden, forgotten, overcome with a thousand pressures and responsibilities. Many spiritual paths teach us that we must withdraw from the world in order to find ourselves anew, but few can afford do this. Complexity theory gives us another way. The state of being overwealmed by details corresponds to a chaotic state, with too many connections active. To allow ourselves to re-create the imagination of youth we need to restrict the information we take in.

Stop.

Switch off the TV or Radio, don't talk, go into the countryside, any of these actions (and many others) serve to reduce 'connectivity'. Our system then cools from the chaotic state to a merely complex one. In this state all possibilities are open to us.

Conversely, if we are bored, then the opposite has happened, we have insufficient input to generate enough possibilities. Solution here is to increase connectivity instead, not by more of the same things but by a new input. This can take the form of education perhaps, a new hobby, new friends from a different background, visiting a new place, all these add to the combinations of ideas we have. The more we know, the more novelty we can generate, the closer then we can approach that ideal state of a perfect and exciting life that we surely all desire.

Excitement in life is to be found, perhaps, living at what we call 'The Edge of Chaos' - a state that, it seems, children manage to find quite naturally...

Page Version 1.1 October 1998
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