Each time I look at the masters, really look, not just “see”, I notice something different.

This time, the key word is balance.

Not the polite, decorative balance you learn in school. I mean balance as perfection, that feeling that nothing is missing and nothing is too much.

The quiet certainty that the work is complete.

But here’s the strange part: balance is never “objective.” Balance depends on timing. On expectations. On what you bring into the room with you.

The same painting can feel perfectly balanced today, and slightly “off” next month, not because the painting changed, but because you did.

Balance is subjective. And that’s exactly why it matters.

When I think about balance, I always end up thinking about jazz.

In great jazz, every tone has its precise place. Not because it’s calculated like a machine, but because it lands where it must land. Nothing feels wrong. Nothing feels forced. Even the silence has weight. That’s the magic: it’s not perfection through control, it’s perfection through presence.

And that’s art.

Here is another thought that keeps coming back to me: coincidence creates balance.

Not always. Not automatically. But often, more than we want to admit.

Balance appears when we allow things to happen. When we stop gripping the work too hard. When we stop trying to dominate it. When we give the painting room to speak back.

That’s why I believe the artist is not only the one who can create, but the one who can let it happen.

It’s almost paradoxical: the more you try to force balance, the more it escapes. The more you relax into the process, the more balance arrives — sometimes gently, sometimes like a surprise.

The natural state of the world is balance. Nature is always negotiating it: light and shadow, growth and decay, chaos and order. And maybe our mind should aim for the same. Not permanent calm, that’s unrealistic, but a return to balance, again and again.

So here is my current mantra:

Do one thing, and become a master of balance.

Practice it. In your work. In your choices. In your attention.

Because the better you become, the more you practice, the more balance you reach.

And when balance arrives, you feel it immediately.

Like a jazz note that lands exactly where it should.

And suddenly, everything is just… right.