Concentration

"In the fourteenth century Pope Benedictus XII was selecting artists to work for the Vatican, requesting from each applicant a sample of his ability. Although the Florentines painter Giotto (1266-1337) was known as a master of design and composition, he submitted only a circle drawn freehand, the famous "0 of Giotto." Yet he was awarded the commission. Why? What's so impressive about a simple circle?"
[...]
"Our deepest awareness, the power that motivates all awareness, which we can call the "Power to Be Conscious," of which we are not ordinarily cognizant, recognizes its own transcendental nature in the geometry of the circle. For this reason the circle has been a universal symbol of an ideal perfection and divine state that always exists around and within us whether we acknowledge it or not. Religious art has traditionally turned to the circle to symbolize this state of divinity as "heaven," "paradise," "eternity," and"enlightenment."

Giotto's perfectly drawn circle communicated this universal ideal."

(Excerpt from chapter one in Michael S. Schneiders book A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe - The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art and Science)


It's a more or less wellknown fact that it's very hard to draw a perfect circle freehand, but just the other day it occured to me that I really hadn't tried. Not really I mean. I think sometimes you just accept certain thing as prevailing facts, without trying to prove them otherwise.

It started with a line, that's quite hard too. Everytime I sit at a lecture I write a heading or some suitable description on top of the paper, and then I try to underline it. And everytime it strikes me how ridiculously imperfect it is, wobbly and unruly. Until the day I realized it could have something to do with the actual approach. I guess I previously only delegated the job to the hand, and if the hand couldn't do it, it meant I couldn't either. The new approach would be to keep thinking, keep concentrating, never disconnect the brain from the drawingprocess, and 'Voilà!' - there it was! An almost perfect line.

But why stop at lines? Why couldn't I try a circle now? I did, and that worked too. The circle was of course not as perfect as the great masters Da Vinci and Raphael could do, but at least I managed to get the ends to meet quite nicely. It didn't look like a cracked egg anymore, so to speak.

Is there a point or moral to this story as well? Maybe a few even. Investigate. Don't settle for others truths. You could do anything if you set your mind to it. If you're delegating jobs - make sure they have the brains for it. And most important, please concentrate!