I am my hands. Everything I do and have done came through my hands. My hands have been amazing and tell countless stories. So when my friend Mark told me about his Ontological coaching and how six words and their emotions account for most everything we people do — it challenged me to express these through hand gestures. Thus was born this series of paintings which tries to speak to the subtle positive and negative inner voices and yearnings that define our lives. Maybe they will stimulate your own inner journey and bring about some clarity of purpose.
The Six Moods of Life
Mark’s framework is elegant in its simplicity. Everything we experience falls into one of three categories: Fact (what we see as unchangeable), Possibility (what we see as changeable), and Uncertainty (what we can’t predict confidently). And for each, we take one of two stances: we either oppose what we face — becoming a victim — or we accept it, becoming a player.
Those two stances, across three domains of experience, give us exactly six emotional states. Not as abstractions — as bodily positions. As gestures. As hands.
The Player — Accepting What Is
Acceptance — when we face fact and say yes to it. Not defeat; recognition. The open palm, still. Ambition — when we see possibility and reach toward it. The hand extended, forward-leaning, ready. Curiosity — when we meet uncertainty not with fear but with wonder. The hand open, receptive, questioning. These are the player’s gestures: present, engaged, moving.
The Victim — Opposing What Is
Resignation — when we face possibility but decide it cannot change. The closed hand, turned away. Anxiety — when uncertainty becomes something to fight rather than inhabit. The braced hand, tense. Resentment — when we push back against unchangeable fact. The fist that exhausts itself against what simply is. These are the victim’s gestures: contracted, resisting, stuck.
Painting these six states was its own kind of ontological exercise. Each hand had to be the emotion — not illustrate it. I found that my own hands knew the difference. The body remembers every one of these positions. Yours does too.
The question Mark’s framework leaves with you — and the one I hope these paintings leave with you — is simply: which hand are you carrying into the room right now?
Hands Series 2025. Oil on canvas. 20×16 inches each. Singapore.