The Artist's Journey

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not.  He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.

- Stephen Pressfield

Not really a comforting thought.

Yet...

While the life of the artist is filled with heartache and difficulty, the alternative life of ignoring your passions and serving the "supposed to" is simply unlivable.

Your pursuit of living the artist within you will take you to the end of yourself.  This journey will strip away the things that make living the artist's life impossible: the need for conformity, approval, and a 'fan club'.  And this is percisely the journey you need to take; it is a shedding of an old self.

It's time to get lean, get resourceful, and discover who you truly are.

Journey on.

Nothing To Prove

You don't have to prove yourself.  Not to your boss, your ex, your teacher, your co-worker, your children, your client, your parents, the world, or even yourself.

No more energy wasted on being defensive, no more time wasted trying to convince, no more heart-ache "living-up to".

Let that never-ending, self-defeating, cycle of exhaustion go.

Instead, focus your energy on offering your best self; simply because it brings joy.

Filler For the Masses

If you are concerned with gaining a following your art will suffer.  Your over-concern with what you think others think they want will leave you second-guessing, cutting corners, and selling-out.

Continue on this path long enough and your art will cease being art and become cheap-filler, white-noise, bland and uninspiring.  You may get others to sign-up and sign-on, but each time you do it will be a death a thousand times over to the true artist within.

Living Gift

The world would have you believe that you are an impulse.  A stomach to be fed, a reaction that cannot be contained, an urge to be fulfilled.

You are marketed to, tantalized, wooed-in, and teased.

A consumer.

Something to be controlled.

Something to be manipulated.

Something to be used.

But these things are a twist of the reality; a perversion of the truth.

You are a gift.

Designed to be given.

Designed for generosity.

Made in Love.

Doodle Bomb

Nagel texted me this doodle.  I'm not sure what this bomb has in mind but his intentions don't seem virtuous (little does Mr. Doodle Bomb know, his fuse won't last the walk to my house)..

What doodle will you send a friend today?

Pretending There Is No Pain

The act of pain-suppression is never a good remedy for healing... it only makes our pain more concentrated; more acute.

When you are wounded, hurt, or in pain, the way to really deal with it is to name it.

Naming our pain is like turning on the light when we hear noises in the house.  It becomes striped of its capacity to hold us in fear.  When we name our pain we define it; creating boundaries in which it can no longer roam anywhere it pleases.

Our naming constructs a container that can hold corrosive contents.

While pain-suppression tries to convince that there is no pain (so keep going on your merry way), naming our pain gives us the space to breathe again, to catch our breath, pause, turn, stare it in the eyes and tell it that we will not be held hostage any longer.

Call pain out of the shadows, bring it front-and-center and no longer let it hold you in fear.

Co-Creating Melodies

The story is told of a concert pianist who was on the point of beginning a performance when there was a scream from the audience.  A child had left her seat beside her parent and was running around the auditorium.  the concert pianist stepped away from this instrument in order to maintain concentration.  The child ran up the steps onto the stage, sat herself down on the stool, and began to play discordant notes at random as she pleased.  The hushed audience gasped in horror and embarrassment.  The pianist walked toward the child and stood behind her as she played.  The pianist leaned over her hand, and without disturbing her, placed right and left hands outside her two small hands on the keyboard.  The pianist then began to play in response to her notes, weaving their discordant sounds into an improvised melody.  To have thrown the child out would have been to block; to have let her play on would have been to accept; to weave a wonderful melody around her was to receive her as a gift, to over-accept.
                                                                                               - Samuel Wells

You are never and inturruption to Divine Pianist.  Your off notes and broken rhythms are never outside the steady movements of God.  You are, after all, a gift and welcomed to play at the seat of the Great Musician.  So, do not be over-concered with the glares of others or over-whelmed that your timing and technique are fragmented. 

This is what it means to be a child.

It is not yours to orchestrate each stanza and perfect each measure.  This is the work of the Conductor, who, as you get lost in the delight of play, hems you into a bigger song.