It is time to write.
This blog is nearly abandoned, which was not my initial intent.
However, I've been dormant because of my frustration. I've been frustrated with myself. I've been frustrated with the place I find myself in, as far as life goes. When I think about what I WANT to do with my life, there is an ache. I ache because I want to contribute to everything around me. I want to make people's days better. I want to give an artistic contribution. Yet, as with many people (if not all) I find my time and efforts being consumed by the drudgery of trying to pay bills and just get ENOUGH money. I don't like that thought. What is 'enough money'? Obviously, I don't have it. But will I ever get there?
Perhaps the frustration is more that I am consumed with the idea, and less with the idea itself. I don't like having anxiety about money. I don't like living paycheck to paycheck. Now, I find myself able to do something about it. I find myself pursuing the opportunity to do something about it.
I'm going to leave everything I know for three months. I'm going to pack up and pursue an opportunity to learn a skill that will be enough, I hope. My sincerest hope is that this adventure will inspire me, encourage me, and give me the freedom to be an artist, and to leave behind some of the crutches that I lean on. I lean on my video games, my TV shows....lots of different things, just so I will fill time. I take the pain and the emotion that I feel and I either bury it, or I let it be sucked out. Instead of expressing it, I fight with it.
Donald Miller wrote about life being an adventure. He talked about how we were MEANT to live a life worth writing about. Instead, so many of us sit on our ambition and fight to be comfortable. I would be content to be uncomfortable, I think, if it meant I could create art that inspires people.
The next three months I view like the idea of hell in an epic. A hero leaves home, usually at some sort of catalysmic event. They go out into the world and struggle; usually with the help of people close to them. Like in the Odyssey, there is the yearning for home. Yet, before he can return home, he has to walk into hell itself. He learns what he needs to know in order to return home. Then Odysseus returns home a hero.
Maybe that's what I'm hoping for in all of this: that I will find home when I'm done. I hope that I will be able to return and MAKE a home for myself.
It seems a little extreme, but I've never really experienced the world in the mundane: not with my soul.
The days themselves seem mundane, but the big picture is always epic. We have our own epic story to write. Do we CHOOSE to write it?
My father told me about how we should not let others' perception of what we can and cannot do limit what we allow ourselves to achieve. How often do we seem to wait for PERMISSION to live up to our dreams. We never take first steps because we're afraid that the end goal is beyond our reach.
I find myself so often afraid to try because I'm afraid I won't measure up to what I hope and dream I can be.
I've found that in my writing as of late. I've been trying to write a short story that MEANS something. I want it to be entertaining. I want it to flow and be captivating, but at the same time it has to mean SOMETHING. I want to empower and inspire, not just entertain. If I don't do that, I feel like it isn't art. It's simply another way to use up time that we are afraid to use for greater things.
So I put my short story down and am having trouble returning to it. I'm having trouble rolling up my sleeves to engage in a struggle with the words and the ideas. It's never good enough. I could always turn in a paper or short story for school after the second draft and do fine. But this is for me. It is for posterity. It is to show that I AM good at my craft. That it DOES mean something. I have the support of the people around me, but I feel like the real struggle is to convince myself.
Anyway, I find myself looking at other artists, and what they are doing, and I am inspired. I want to take my own passion and creativity and wrestle with it until it takes form and MEANS something.
We all experience pain. We all struggle to understand life and make sense of it. It seems that most often it is through art that we are able to convey that struggle with one another. It's through art that we're able to empathize with one another, or to encourage one another. I've definitely felt that in reading, or looking at sculptures, tattoos, street art, and many other forms. Sometimes, even the way someone is dressed is inspirational. They've turned themselves into a walking art piece, conveying a message about what they believe. Those of us who try can CONNECT with people through things like this.
I think that's something that I really like about the 'art community'. The goal, it seems to me, is not to create some lasting piece that will make you famous, but rather to connect with people, to empathize. To show our pain, our struggle, and have people go 'oh...i get it. I feel it too.' Sometimes, the art community seems to be a conversation about pain, ideas, archetype. I want to be a part of it all.
So, coming full circle, it is now time for a leap of faith. It's time to set out on an adventure. It's time to take first steps towards becoming what I set out to be as a wide eyed teenager. Maybe, when it's all over, I'll find home again. Maybe I won't. But I will give it my best shot. I'll step into the ring to exchange blows with my weaknesses, my adversity, my challenges, my fears. I'll look my destiny in the eyes and say 'I'm coming for you. I won't be stopped. Step by small step, I'm getting closer.'
