inner critic | The Direction of Intention

No Comparison [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 8, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“So as long as the mind is comparing, there is no love, and the mind is always judging, comparing, weighing, looking to find out where the weakness is. So where there is comparison, there is no love.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness

The snow was nested in the pine needles when the wind blew the bundle from the safety of the branch. Together, snow and fascicle landed far below on the well-worn path. I would not have seen it had she not suddenly knelt, pulled her glove from her hand with her teeth and braved the bitter wind to snap an up-close photograph.

Many days later, while choosing photographs for our next Melange, she asks, “Which do you like better?” She shows me the snow-and-pine-needle-embrace among many other photographs. I rarely have a coherent answer to the better-or-worse question. Her photos are always beautiful or curious or interesting – they are certainly moments-in-the-world that I would have missed had she not stopped to capture the image. While she gazes at the beauty on the trail I am generally lost in my thought. It is generally impossible for me to compare the worth of one photograph over another.

I am working on a painting and have given myself full permission to make a mess. It’s harder than you might imagine to turn off the inner-critic, the one who demands better work, the one that compares me with others. In comparison, I always lose.

I am employing a strategy to silence my inner voice of comparison: when the critic roars I pick up a rag or wide-tool incapable of nuance and I smear. I am afraid that I don’t know what I am doing – so I make certain that I don’t; I dive head-long into not knowing. In splodging paint, I guarantee that there can be no comparison to others or to any version of my past-artist-self.

“When you are comparing, you are really not looking at the sunset which is there, but you are looking at it in order to compare it with something else. So comparison prevents you from looking fully.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Love and Loneliness

In the moment she kneels on a bitter cold day to capture the embrace of snow and pine needles, there is no comparison. She is looking fully. What I see when she shows me the photograph is a moment of seeing, a moment of beauty recognized. Love realized. It’s the same reason I stand at an easel and wipe away my trepidation. To see, subject and object undifferentiated. For a moment, no comparison. One.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNOW AND PINE NEEDLES