Artist and author Jean-Pierre Weill wrote his first book, The Well of Being, as “a description of the process of coming home.” Described as a children’s book for adults, Weill drew each illustration to accompany what he considers life’s burning questions.
“It can sometimes feel like circumstances are dictating our lives,” he says, asking: “How often do I find myself waiting, waiting for something to happen, waiting for my career to improve, waiting for love or for my own improvement before I can fully live my life.”
Through his illustrations, Weill hopes to invite the reader to discover the content as a child might, free of the natural suspicion adults harbor toward unfamiliar ideas. “Having passed through the gates of resistances, the ideas are experienced, which the reader may afterward discard or examine further down the road,” he explains.
Weill says his book is not filled with answers or anecdotes that encourage mind over circumstance. It is an exploration of where we are and where we’re headed. It is a look at the spontaneity of childhood versus the constraints of adult life.
In his book, he writes:
We organize our circumstances into stories, stories we pick up along the way and carry with us.
Stories that declare, I’m lacking.
Why me? stories.
I’m alone, stories.
What will I amount to? stories.
Stories about who we should be.
Or think we are.
They are interior maps whose familiar roads we travel. Over and over. Yet when we apprehend these maps, these stories, these patterns … we awaken and rise, as it were, to a new perspective, to new possibilities.
The stories we tell ourselves keep us small, says Weill adding that his story is one that challenges this fact, making the reader explore ways to experience life as it happens.
The book was first released in 2012 and was most recently made available in the United Kingdom in November 2015. It is expected to be released in the United States in November 2016 and is also available in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and India.
