The Limits of My Mastery are the Limits of My Truth
Essay: How the path of mastery expands our awareness of Truth and why AI blocks it
“...what an artificial intelligence cannot do is to give coherent, clarifying, formative voice to your scattered thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and personal vision. It cannot express or articulate yourself. Only you can do that. Otherwise, you’re letting a machine tell you, and others, who you are.” – Matt Cardin, The Zen of Words1
Wittgenstein said, "The limits of my language are the limits of my world."
What Wittgenstein meant by that, I think, is that language is important for reasons beyond “mere” communication; that we must endeavor not only to know language, but to master it so that we are able to clearly express our ideas, but also, even more importantly, that through the process of mastery, we are empowered to expand our perception and understanding of our inner and outer realities.
Furthermore, the greater the writer’s mastery of language, the greater his ability to comprehend and express the truth of his own worldview. Improving his mastery of language enables him to adjust and refine his understanding of reality itself, asymptotically approaching ever-closer to Truth.
The finer your ability to wield language, the finer the detail you will be able to express in your writing. As your mastery progresses, you are empowered to express subtler and more nuanced ideas:
I’m mad, I'm angry, I'm furious, I'm enraged, I'm boiling…There is a force building inside of me, bubbling up, a kinetic lava of emotion that will explode, flatten and melt all who dare to come near me…My soul has been riven by the skullduggery of my former friend, and out of the chasm of my broken heart flows the unholy darkness of hell, intent upon extracting its diabolical revenge.
The phrases above all express the same basic idea in broad strokes, but they are far from identical in meaning or in the accuracy of depicting what the writer was feeling inside.
Mastering language increases the resolution with which one can project the ideas of his soul.
That's all well and good and what I’ve written up to this point was inspired primarily by the (highly recommended) essay, The Zen of Words by Matt Cardin, from which I drew the epigraph quote about artificial intelligence at the top of the essay.
Before we discuss the implications of AI, as it relates to mastery, let’s move beyond language to other artistic fields: I propose that Wittgenstein’s famous idea about the mastery of language can be generalized as follows: The limits of my mastery are the limits of the Truth I can perceive.
Let’s call this Clintavo’s dictum. And, simplifying, it states:
The limits of my mastery are the limits of my Truth.
Shifting to visual art – the reason artists, historically, have trained, for many years in drawing, in composition, in color theory, in countless hours of practice, and in apprenticeships is because one must master the "language" of visual art in the same way one masters written language, if one wishes to expand, through mastery, the subtlety of expression one is able to give one’s creative inner world.
How can you see, and share, the transcendent, indescribable beauty of the mystery if you don't possess a high enough resolution "screen" upon which to show it?
If you haven’t mastered your medium, not only will you not have the skill to depict ideas and ideals in fine resolution, but you will struggle even to perceive the subtler important Truths of reality. You simply won’t have the skillset that brings true discernment and thus, in the best case, you will produce subpar art, and in the worst case, you will find yourself in danger of accepting societal programming or religious dogma as Truth.
To meet reality as it is, the artist masters the observational skills of both the sense-driven eyes, which see the outer world, and the soul-driven “single eye” which unveils the intuitive wisdom of inner light. The master artist has developed his awareness of subtlety, the nuances of color and light, to the degree that he begins to transform his subjects, both outer and inner, from mere images into icons that reveal deeper truths.
Biblically, “light” refers to both the wavelengths our eyes utilize to see, physically, and the illumination of embodied knowledge provided to our minds and souls.
“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light”2
In addition to refining his observational skills, the artist must also master the motor skills necessary to properly depict the sublimeness of what he has seen. As all of these skills develop, a richer and more nuanced reality increasingly unfolds itself around the artist.
This is true of all fields that truly require mastery or, at least those fields of mastery that require us to mine our psycho-spiritual depths for Truth.
The meditator, similarly, develops a highly refined ability to concentrate upon and perceive subtle realities that the average person never experiences.
The virtuoso musician begins to hear, and play, the music of the universe itself.
The chef and the winemaker taste the same celestial chord upon the tongue.
The martial artist and the athlete both master physical move after physical move, over and over, until no intellectual thinking is required and he may then, as Bruce Lee famously said, “Be like water.”
“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.” — Miles Davis
The limits of your mastery are the limits of your truth because…as your resolution of mastery increases, you expand your consciousness and thus, you expand your perception of Truth (with a big T). This can also be referred to as “growing your soul.”
“The practice of art isn't to make a living. It's to make your soul grow” — Kurt Vonnegut
This is why there is so much overlap between the artistic and the spiritual; the artists and the saints; the arts and the religions. These two “useless” — but infinitely essential — pursuits of humanity tread the same waters. They are two portals into the same underlying Truth. Both the spiritual guru and the accomplished artist are referred to as, “master.”
When one has mastered their medium, then the ideas flow from the soul’s intuitive single eye of wisdom directly to the instinctive movement of the master’s muscles: As above, so below; on “earth” (the muscles) as it is in “heaven” (Truth revealed by the single eye). For the master artist, the paintings often “paint themselves” as they enter “the zone” of this flow.
The true artist, the virtuoso, masters his medium not simply to "wow" his friends and viewers with his technical prowess, but to better see, and better "articulate" his inner creations and, importantly, for the artist, himself, to better understand what his creations mean.
Achieving the ability to depict more masterful resolution allows one to comprehend how their observations and creations fit into their world view. Mastery empowers artists to deliver deep and surprising insights which resonate with others about the true nature of reality.
In other words, mastery is a journey for the Artist to find his True Self and then, once found, continue the great universal project of showing others the way home.
True visual art is such a powerful force in this divine project because it is apprehended quickly. Its powerful visuals — through beauty — cut open a virtuous divine wound in our hearts where our inner divine light may exit and through which outer divine light may enter. Our hearts become the single point where the exiting and entering lights meet; where God embraces himself and, for a moment, we find ourselves immersed in shocking, loving, compassionate recognition.
You may not have realized that your paintbrush can be, in masterful hands, such a powerful sword of Truth. Wield it responsibly.
The works of the master artist contain the resonance to reveal Truth to our souls, through the depiction of Beauty (Truth’s aesthetic form), often with far more power than a hundred proselytizers quoting from ancient texts. Not all gospel is written. Not all encounters with God are spoken.
If the step of mastering the medium is skipped or short-changed by the would-be artist, as it so often is in our post-modern world, then that practitioner’s understanding of reality and their truest self will be non-existent or incomplete.
This skill deficiency will decapitate, or severely hobble, his ability to create resonant and powerful art. One only has to look at much of what is called “art” (and “architecture”) today to see how far from Truth we’ve fallen as a civilization and how much our “shortcuts” have cost us.
“Artists are people who are not at all interested in the facts—only in the truth. You get the facts from outside. The truth you get from inside.” — Ursula Le Guin
Which brings us back to artificial intelligence: It is true that AI can create “pretty images.” Such images provide a surface-level veneer of “art” to the un-masterful eye and they present a simulacrum of creativity.
But the point of Art isn't simply to make “pretty images.”
Instead, the point of Art, ultimately, is to go deep into our inner mystery, and uncover enough understanding to find the resonate path that leads to our True Self; the path that takes us to self-actualization and beyond; the path which allows us, through our Art, to point the way, indirectly perhaps, to others.
If Art of any form — painting, sculpting, writing or otherwise — is your true calling, and you think you can replace the dedicated work of mastery that it takes to uncover such a sacred path with prompts in an AI command box, then you are robbing yourself of your own destiny; for Art isn't only (or even mostly) the about end product. Art is about the journey. Art is the journey.
“The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
If you're not interested in your soul's true path (the most important path you could ever find), then sure, you can generate “art” with a prompt, but don't kid yourself: Typing a few words into a text box and receiving an image in return no more makes you an artist, than ordering food on Uber Eats makes you a chef.
In doing so, you have received an image, but what you don't have is the mastery-developed screen of resolution desperately needed to understand the reality of yourself; you don’t have any intuitive insight into what such an image truly means; you don’t have the experience of the journey back to your true self which is indeed the true art that all artists, all saints, and ultimately, all people, seek.
‘The artist and entrepreneur find their authentic selves not by whom they love or hate, or what they believe, or what feats they perform. The artist and the entrepreneur discover themselves by what they create. They don’t know before they create it. When they see their work on the page or the screen or rising before them forty stories high in concrete and steel, they say, “That’s me.”’ — Stephen Pressfield
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No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all my posts) is written 100% by me, Clint “Clintavo” Watson, a flesh and blood human seeking to grow my soul and come home my truest self; for that is the essence of creativity. I do not use AI to assist me with writing — that would deny me the very growth of my world through writing that I seek.
I only rarely use AI images with my (non-AI) writing. On the rare occasions I do use an AI image (usually fiction), I also feature at least one artwork by a human artist with image credits and links to their work or, if I can’t find a suitable image, I donate a free month of website service to one of our artist customers at my SaaS company, FASO Artist Websites.
Poetic expression, spiritual ideas, and musings upon beauty, truth and goodness should be free to spread far and wide. Hence, I have not paywalled the work on Reflections of the Sovereign Artist. However, if you’re able to become a paid subscriber, I’d be eternally grateful. It would help, encourage and enable me to continue exploring these topics and allow me to keep it accessible for a world that is in desperate need of beauty, truth, goodness and love. — Creatively, Clintavo.
Matt Cardin, “The Zen of Words”, The Living Dark, August 24, 2024
Matthew 6:22
"The limits of my mastery are the limits of the Truth I can perceive." Totally resonate with this. This was a very perceptive piece, weaving very important themes that often go undetected. I would say that AI does have it's benefits, but to vacuously use it to "produce" things without you yourself utilising and owning your own creativity and mastery would lead to some sort of soul death/identity crisis later down the line. We need to be careful and intentional with everything within our orbit.
This is a great reminder of my own journey as an artist. I have references that I'm painting now that I couldn't have painted 5 years ago. I also have references that I'm unable to paint (with mastery) at this time. It's up to me to develop the mastery to be able to skillfully paint those references so that I can present them with joy. AI cannot do that for me.