Final Installment of Shattering Paradigms

Part V—The Mission

Wouldn’t we be happier if we were excited about each new day? What if we were happy every day? Tell me—do you have more energy when you are happy and excited or when you are down and out? Wouldn’t it be great to have a renewed energy about life? Wouldn’t it be easier to live each day with positive expectation as you work to achieve your goals and dreams? What would it be like to be learning and growing each day?

Our paradigms are our prisons—the prisons of our thought processes and belief systems. Although paradigms are very hard to overcome—we have learned them, tested their boundaries and lived within them our entire lives— the changes are merely a slight change in thinking, a shift from negative to positive, a shift from failure to possibility thinking. Those are small shifts, but the paradigms are HUGE!! I'm saying that "left is right!!" What is hard is easy and what is easy is hard!!! That is why the paradigm is so strong--because rather than seeing that the solution is just a small change in the way we think, people see it as paradoxical--especially when I say that what people perceive as the "easy" life, is really hard!!

So, what does all this have to do with ARTShift? This is a major part of the shift in consciousness. Artists have always seen things through a different lens than most people. They are able to see things through the mediums of their art and with the use of imagination that many people have lost as they have conformed to their life paradigms. But we straddle the line—we grew up within the same context as those who have been brought down. We see a light on one side and the darkness on the other. At times we struggle with both. But, we can understand those caught in the negative spiral, and we have the ability to lead them to their highest vision of themselves. Sometimes we will have to get them in touch with that higher vision again, and often we will have to believe in people more than they believe in themselves. I had once written that in working to see the better selves of others, we become better selves ourselves. In helping to raise another spirit higher, our spirit inevitably rises higher and shines brighter to illuminate more and further stretches of the road.

In conclusion, I cannot get the lyrics of one of my favorite Rush songs out of my mind—they wrote this back in the late 70’s as a hope for a better future, never realizing that they had written what could be our anthem some 30 years in advance of creation.

"Closer To The Heart"

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
They forge their creativity
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart
Closer to the heart
You can be the captain
I will draw the chart
Sailing into destiny
Closer to the heart

(Bold added)

Mike Tucci