If our inner artist is going to be able to express himself, it needs to be given a voice. Oh man…a light bulb or lightning bolt or something just flashed. I grew up without a voice. Instead of fighting, I was conditioned to give in. I wasn’t going to win, what was the use in trying? I’ve carried that attitude in life and relationships since and have struggled to find my voice and corresponding confidence.
But what if part of that is that who I really am…this inner artist…has been muted in that process. “The Artist’s Way” quotes Picasso saying, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
I grew up void of emotion. I was taught to stuff that shit. It wasn’t safe to emote. And it was a no win situation to question the man or fight the power. So, even mini-MatthewBlakeAtkinson didn’t have the freedom to be the child artist of whom Picasso spoke.
As a result, to now be experiencing the kind of life that I am is overwhelming at times. Not only have I come to life ever since I experienced the grace that I spoke of last time, I’m also able to see signs that the little artist in me is finally getting his chance to be heard.
No longer do I have that defeated feeling, like, “Why speak? It’s not going to matter anyway.” That voice is silent. The real me is who’s running the show now. I used to constantly have a running video clip in my head of all the stupid things I’d done in my life. “I’m an idiot” was the dominant feeling.
But, grace changed that. The day the therapist called my friend from the strip club an angel was the day that I came to life. And really it’s because of the emotions that I started feeling that day I’m now able to connect to great art. Feeling movies. Feeling great writing. Feeling music. All of those things are essentially me feeling people’s stories, either their real story or a story that their inner artist creates…other people’s rhythms striking a chord in my heart.
And not the march to the beat of the same drum bull shit, but real, unique art. I’m not going to be touched to the soul by some formulaic money making machine. We made this blockbuster because research shows robots breaking shit does well in our key demographic. Or studies show that MILFs pay actual money to see movies where Brad Pitt doesn’t need to wear a shirt. Fuck focus groups and formulas. Give me unique.
One of the things I love about this Artist’s Way book is the idea of an Artist’s date. Actually scheduling quality time with your inner artist. Taking yourself to a artsy movie. Or an art gallery. Nurturing and feeding the artist within.
There’s so much bull shit mindless TV and movies these days. Instead of enriching our lives by feeding our inner artist soul food, we settle for the tv dinners of entertainment, shows that numb and/or help us escape. Shows that are meeting the same need as saying "I need a vacation" or "I can’t wait for the weekend" or "At least I'm not as bad as that guy on Big Brother." But, why do we long to escape our day to day? It’s because we’ve settled into the main stream.
What if there’s another way to do life? Like actually live a life that gives you that kind of feeling that being on vacation does, only more fulfilling, because you don’t have that dreaded feeling that it’s going to end and you’re going to have to go back to work. I think that type of life is the opposite of mainstream.
I’m going to keep swimming upstream and take all sorts of weird side-streams along the way. And give myself the chance to be influenced by other people who have done and are doing the same thing. And I want you guys to come with me. You lead the way. I'll lead the way, who the fuck cares as long as our path leads us towards places where our hearts beat loudly in our chest as we shake our heads in disbelief that life can be so full.
This week I'm going to let Tom Waits lead me upstream. For my first artist’s date I’m going to block off two hours to youtube as much of his stuff as I can find. Dude is a freak. He’s so creative. Just his song titles alone make me want to know more about him. I’ve listened to some of his stuff, but I want to just take some time to drink him in…to get my inner artist fucked up on shots of Tom Waits’ art.
All right...I'm going to stop there for tonight, but man...this feeling...it's unlike anything for me...writing with passion, feeling almost like I have too much I want to say. God, this is fun. Thanks for reading you son of a bitch :) I appreciate you.
No comments:
Post a Comment