this painting derives out of a series of three paintings where this painting is the centerfold. Metanoia is a word i found on the last page from 'The Wisdom of Insecurity' by Alan Watts. It describes the evolution of Paranoia in the positive sense - which is the balance of the seperated perception of reality (Paranoia - represented by the blue and red pills in my hands) balanced with the self. The two identical childrens pistols, are a symbol for fear. Fear not being a God with a magnum to our temples, it is a general illusion that we create ourselves, therefore they are held by no one, and in detail within the pistols is another image of the self holding a pistol.

Quote by Alan Watts:

'Ye suffer from yourselves, none else compels,
None other holds you that ye live and die -
And whir upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
its spokes of agony,
Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.'

'Discovering this the mind becomes whole: the split between I and me, man and the world, the ideal and the real, comes to an end. Paranoia, the mind beside itself, becomes Metanoia, the mind with itself and so free from itself.'