“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck, your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes a spiritual calling.”
Vincent Van Gogh
“I’m sorry I’m running a little late, I just made a nose out of a rib bone,” Dr. David Hecht casually said as he entered my exam room, his lithe movement reminding me of a warrior. He has on green scrubs and his tousled short hair is rich like mahogany. His light brown eyes look like sunlight shining through whiskey. The colors mingle together cascading an array of different shades throughout his gaze.
Everything about him is symmetrical, most obviously his cheekbones, but the symmetry extends to the way he smiles and holds his body. His rugged good looks are unexpected and even in his late 40’s he still possesses traces of what must have been loads of boyhood charm. This is my facial reconstructive surgeon: the man, and artistic genius that ended up putting my face back together after skin cancer had been cut out of my forehead and cheek.
Artists and doctors share many of the same approaches. They are visual people who study the intricacies of human anatomy. And they share highly developed observational skills and a fundamental love for humankind.
Each face is completely unique. Deciding how to shape it so that each feature appears in harmony with the others requires not only skill, but also an artistic vision and imagination. Plastic surgeons need a sense of aesthetics to design an appropriate surgical approach to the individual. An understanding of proportion—much like that expressed in the work of old masters such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci—combined with superior technical skills is imperative. With this combination, a surgeon links art and science, resulting in a more fully realized, beautifully proportioned outcome. The result is a walking piece of art.
But what makes Dr. Hecht a true artistic genius is his ability to access his inner world to bring out something not only meaningful and beautiful, but also necessary and incredible. Inner artistic genius is the inherent and indelible connection to the other world of great imagination, original thought and endless renewal. He sees the world for how it is supposed to be seen; with an open heart, mind, body and soul. He judges none and nothing. They are all the same to him; parts of life that are each equal and necessary, the art of the world.
Each artist is unique. And uniqueness has boldness in it and a core of imagination intended to transcend the common attitudes and collective patterns. Being unique is the spirit that is already there in each person, the inner intention, primary style and way of being that makes a true individual regardless of the pressure to conform to temporary social patterns and contemporary cultural fashions. At the individual level, each of us is an artist, here to give something that is not just unusual, not only exceptional, but that is distinctive and valuable by its very nature.
The inner uniqueness for life aspires to meaningful work and genuine purpose. It would have us undertake the seemingly impossible tasks of transforming culture and helping to heal the world. Not because the world can be saved or redeemed in a hurry, but because it is the impossibility of the great problems and projects of life that awakens the sleeping uniqueness within and changes work from a simple job to a life-long, life-enhancing project. And that serves the dignity and nobility of one’s soul as well as the well being of one’s community.
More than raw talent or potential ability, genius gives a person their unique way of being in and contributing to the world. So the question becomes not whether or not you are an artistic genius, but in what way does artistic genius appear in you and how might it contribute to your own well being and benefit the world around you.
A common idea found in many ancient traditions holds that each person comes to this world at a time when they have something meaningful to offer. I will forever be grateful that Dr. Hecht and his artistic genius are in mine.
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