To Become a Master, You Must Become a Child
What Christ, Lao Tse, Robert Frost, and the great masters understood about creativity
This piece originally appeared on Clint’s personal newsletter, The Sovereign Artist, here. We will be locking this piece in a few days to prevent duplicate content issues.
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.
—Christ, John 12:24
Please click the Like button—the little heart icon at the top and bottom—if you want your inner child to be let loose with your paintbrushes and your mind so that your masterful skill may reach its full potential — also, it helps us better promote the arts to those who need support.
Once The Kardia opens, and The Sovereign Artist Within is discovered, we begin to be inspired to create something that reflects the beauty of the universe all around us.
The Sovereign Artist may be understood as analogous to The Force from Star Wars and The Way from the Tao Te Ching. It is the Creator. It is God for those that believe in a god. It is, as Robert Frost poetically expressed, “the Secret that sits in the center and knows.”
We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
—Robert Frost, The Secret Sits
Children don’t think about any of this “God” mumbo-jumbo, but, nonetheless, this sovereign life-giving light smiles upon them and, as we can easily observe, children simply live in the world that is, and, through their imaginations, transform it into the world that could be. That too, is the artist’s job.
The Sovereign Artist, you see, is not about belief, it’s a kind of felt music; a resonant inner knowing.
Receive the world in your arms.
If you receive the world,
the Tao will never leave you
and you will be like a little child.—Lao Tse
Those words were written by Lao Tse in the Tao Te Ching over 2,500 years ago. The Chinese honorific suffix, “Tse” means something like “master” while simultaneously also meaning “child.”
That points to a truth: to be a true master, you must be “born again” into a second childhood.
😊 I built FASO to push back against a world that treats art like content and artists like algorithms. Your work is more important than that. The world needs beauty more than ever. If our mission appeals to you, then you need a serious, beautiful home for your art, the details are below, after the essay.
—Clint
In some ways, the surrender you must make to tap into the power of The Sovereign Artist is the hardest thing you’ll ever do; for you must let go of your ego and “die” if you wish to “bear much fruit.”
But in other ways, it’s the simplest thing in the world to come home to yourself.
When The Sovereign Artist sits upon the throne of your psyche, you recover a child’s playful joy—but now joined to a master’s skill. And the combination of the two is what turns you into an instrument of The Divine.
The journey starts by remembering the child inside. How poetic that the Chinese language expresses this idea in a single word: Tse.
PS — One of the reasons I built FASO is because I believe art is important, artists are important, and the work you’re called to create deserves to be taken seriously. We are all sharing “miracles of existence” through our art.
Yes, at FASO, we build professional artist websites. Yes, we talk about marketing. Yes, we give artists tools to present their work, tell their stories, reach collectors, and sell more art.
But that is the how.
The why is that we love art, and we want to push back against a world that too often treats art like content and artists like algorithms. The modern world denigrates Beauty in preference of profit and efficiency. At FASO, we hold Beauty sacred.
So we don’t just host artist websites. We promote artists. We feature their work. We try, in our own small way, to help more art find the people who need it. And that informs everything we do and build.
If that resonates with you, we’d be honored to have you join us.
PPS — If you’re not ready to look at FASO, you can support our mission by simply clicking the heart icon at the top or bottom of this article. That helps us reach more artists and art lovers and helps us spread Beauty to a world that is desperate for it.
—Clint
Thoughtful content. Thank you
The child is the father of the man…