I'll tell you how I didn't let go of the existential thought for five years and what my “eye-drop” sign, which I constantly draw in my paintings, has to do with it.

Trigger Warning: This text can trigger an existential crisis or, on the other hand, close it, depending on how you read it.

—-

Part 1. Do I exist?

Simple questions like this kept coming to me while I was locked away in my tiny one-bedroom apartment in Kyiv during COVID.

Reading philosophy probably had its influence too.

I’d look at myself and think — here are my hands, my eyes, my nose, my skin. They’re all just passing information to my brain. At first, it decides what to do with it (if there’s danger, it triggers a reaction), and only then does it give me the picture of reality, which I think I see with my eyes, smell with my nose, feel with my skin.

Damn, it’s probably creating these thoughts too!

Where am I in this?

As a visual artist and a bit of a programmer, I like to think in schemes. That's where my thought started:

**Scheme 1**

*Let's say that this circle is the space of “Something” from which our physical body receives information. We don't know what it is.*

**Scheme 2**

*Our brain (I drew it as a square) lives in this “Something”, which receives and transmits information like an antenna.*

**Scheme 3**

*This antenna creates the cinema we see, making us believe it is the true reality.*
*In fact, the sound, colors, smells, etc. do not exist, it is the brain that creates this experience for us.*

Part 2. Bad Movie.

At the same time, I was seeing a psychotherapist. She asked me to show her my painting and describe it. I showed her this:

And that’s when I realized — I was screaming at my own reality. I got confused in explanations and started to see the existential fear around me.

**Scheme 4**

*The movie that my brain streamed to me was one star out of five*

Part 3. I have a choice?

Realizing that I am confused has already made me feel better. I decided to start from the beginning and let myself get lost again. I moved to a new spacious two-room apartment in the center of Kyiv and decided to stop painting the way I used to.

I wondered, if my brain creates my reality and influences me, is there even an "I" that can influence the brain in return? If so, how? Or am I just a machine that reacts and performs tasks?

The simple thought came to me that I still have a choice — to focus it or defocus it.

Part 4. Eye-drop.

I decided to train and explore this ability in my work, during walks, while painting, and throughout life itself.

At that moment, I was sketching in my notebook and saw that I could capture this thought as a symbol resembling an eye in the form of a drop (Well, some people see a dick or a boob in this sign, I don't understand them).

**Scheme 5**

*A visual sign to show the focused and unfocused state*

To ensure I wouldn’t forget this realization, I made it a part of my new creative journey.

The feeling of control changes the perspective on reality. Look how my paintings have changed:

But let's continue the explanation in the form of schemes:

**Scheme 6**

*If we imagine “I” in the same “Something” reality as the brain, and having the choice to focus the brain or to unfocus.*

**Scheme 7**

*Then we can also filter the movie itself.*
*The dot is attention. (Attention and focus are different things).*

**Scheme 8**

*And if we, for example, focus the brain.*

**Scheme 9**

*Then the attention will switch to this mode.*
*In this way, the “I” has a choice of where to direct attention, and not only the brain has this power.*

Again. I have a choice to focus my brain or defocus. And now I have the power to choose where to direct my attention. That's a lot!

This became fascinating to play with. I started filtering everything from focus to unfocus, whether it was advertising, design, my paintings, music, or the universe itself. I even started going to dance classes to explore this concept through movement.

I noticed that in a focused state, thoughts behave very differently compared to when you're unfocused. It's obvious, but I've explored this difference in practice.

In focus, you can calculate, create systems, think logically, and strategize. In unfocus, you can "hear" emotions, fears, melodies, colors, noise, fantasies, and so much more. And when you switch between these states, almost like dancing, that's when the real magic happens.

This began helping me come up with ideas. I wanted to describe it somehow and explain it, but I started to get confused again.

Part 5. I found real “I”.

The full-scale war began. My wife, Olesya, and I found ourselves in Berlin. It threw me off completely. I focused on the news and work. But sometimes, I set aside time for painting as a way to remind myself not to stop exploring.

After two years of living in Germany, I returned to the process of searching for explanations.

One day, Olesya was reading a book on Adlerian philosophy aloud to me. One idea caught my interest: that there is no past and no future, only the now.

I realized I had been focusing entirely on my thoughts, studying how they behaved in different states. And all this time, I hadn't noticed that the choice of what to focus on was not limited to thoughts.

But what I needed was to focus on the moment of “NOW”.

**Scheme 10**

Between the reality of "Something" and the reality of "Movie" there is a conditional distance. The further our attention moves away from the moment of “Now”, the more the fictional “Movie” has power over us.

After a month of periodically sitting and focusing on the “Now”, it felt like something illuminated me from within.

An incredibly powerful realization struck me: in the present moment, thoughts do not exist, only the real “I”. It’s a paradoxical state — it’s there, and it’s not there at the same time. Everything in between is an illusion. I realized this before, but now I felt it.

It's a feeling when you've been looking for the keys for a long time, and they've always been in front of your eyes, and you finally pay attention to them.

**Scheme 11**

*When you stay focused in the present moment for a long time, you begin to feel the real you without illusions.*

My identity? Also an illusion, it doesn’t exist either. The past and the future? Yes, just illusions. My thoughts don't matter, they're not me, they're just clouds. And that’s completely fine.

Illusion is just a tool that is interesting to play with, not a place of permanent residence.

Okay, so what now? Should I start chanting “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama,” dive into spirituality, shamanism, the 7D dimension, parallel realities, or hop onto an alien spaceship? Oh, for heaven’s sake, no! (Although, it depends on the desire).

I just need to be while it’s happening.

(And maybe write about it in my blog)

Happy new eye

From nothing to something.

Confusion 3. Experience