It’s a line I’ve heard all my life.
“Well let’s hope you get somewhere with it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well let’s hope you make some money out of it.” She said.
A light goes on. Finally, I see the situation with more clarity than I ever have before.
“Do you realise.” I say. “Every time that you say something like that, that you ‘hope I will get somewhere’, what you do is bypass all of the things that I have told you that I appreciate about life – all that I find valuable about living? Every time that you measure the success of my life – of the creativity and the creation of it, or in it, every time you measure it in terms of how much money I ‘might’ make you imply that any expression without that is to fail.”
“Oh No, I don’t mean that.”
“But that is what you are saying.” I continued.
“I have just explained to you that perhaps THE most consistent aspect of living, a thing that feels most meaningful, valuable, and even joyful for me, is to live creatively; writing, music, boardgames, you name it. It doesn’t matter what it is. There is no ‘somewhere’ to get to beyond this for me. I know that you have my best interests at heart – we both know that money needs to be made in order to survive, and I appreciate your care, I really do. I just want you to understand that for me that is secondary – that creation is the most important thing. Of course it would be nice to sell the things that I create but I can’t measure their or my success in terms of how a market values them because that is not what it’s about for me. It would be like trying to measure the value of a life – sure, people do it, but to the individual whose life it it, that is a priceless gift whose value is ultimately down to that person to decide. As soon as I think about creating something for the sake of money it dies – because the things that I create have lives of their own, they are not commodities – I am just a vessel, they come through me, I just help give them a shape and a life. To make things for profit would be like having children to sell them. Sure, I’d be happy for them if they succeed in the world but I love them for who they are – It would be like only considering your children to be successful at life by the fact of if they made money or not, that is a distortion of the value of what the gift of life is to me.”
I paused.
“Oh well.”
She paused.
“Let’s hope you makes some money out of it all the same. It would be a shame to let all that effort go to waste.”
This particular conversation happened a few years back now. It was far from an isolated incident though.
To say that some people get it and some people don’t is a bit too reductive. It’s not like I don’t see some people thinking the same thing about me.
What I didn’t understand at the time was that I wasn’t getting it.
I mean, I knew what I said was correct, in so far as it was true for me. It was just that my attempts to communicate it to others was what I wasn’t getting. Part of me was still seeking qualification and confirmation from outside of myself at some level. Which is fair enough at some level – it can be challenging living in a world in which a seemingly overwhelming majority have subjugated themselves to a set of values that appear to be set at an angle that is antagonistic to your own.
For the most part that is ok too, because we can, I am certain, agree that everyone is different. There are some people who get it, by varying degrees, and some who won’t. It is just that there is a period during which you have to acclimate yourself to getting over the fact that there are people who you wish got it, but who don’t.
When these people are people you have known for a long time, whose consideration and care you elicit, or whose approval you seek, there is a form of grief that can be involved. Or you can just let go of it.
The part that you have to let go of and accept is that there is a part of you that may never be, or have been seen by them. This can be a lonely place to traverse because it can feel like something dies – a path to some layer or level of yourself.
Except it doesn’t.
The truer part of the picture is that you are just maturing.
The desire, want, or need for confirmation from another, especially a parent, or someone we have admiration or respect for, can be a powerful pull at times. That one might still desire this confirmation as an adult is not unusual but, arguably, it is not optimally a healthy position to take.
Identifying any part of you that appears to be an essential part of your nature and giving yourself permission to live it out in life – or, more accurately, to KNOW the truth of it and to BE it, is liberating.
It is to free your soul.
When you can own these aspects of yourself, and live them, then you have solved a very significant riddle of living your life to the full.
In living this way, truer to your nature, without needing anyone else to qualify, validate, or confirm you, then you stop abandoning yourself too.
This moment can feel like a rebirth. There is a sense of self assurance and confidence that comes with it. You know who you are and what you are about. Your path in life feels clearer to you and you can go about it in the knowledge that your acts come from your core, from the soul of you, and are not pulled or drawn out or away from that as once you were.
For some, at first glance it can seem like isolation, because you are prepared to walk your own path without compromise, because truth has no compromise – not least your own.
At first glance the prospect may even be scary, because you will be stepping into the unknown.
But it is not isolation. It is a move towards acceptance of yourself in a way that feels more whole.
Know your truth and then live it.
This is the way of the artist.
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