It has been a very long time since I’ve sat down and written something of worth, or even of deep thought. So many of my posts are my latest creative endeavors, my current crafty likes and dislikes, and the sort. I used to sit down and type out so many of my experiences, sitting at Starbucks for hours upon hours at a time, just pouring out my thoughts with no end in sight.
It has been a while. But, I have had something on my mind this weekend. Something good. Good questions stir up the soul and cause us to dream again, to hope, to anticipate, or to reorganize our lives. I like questions. I used to be so embarrassed to ask questions when I was young. I would become so frustrated with my mom when she would ask someone even a simple question. But, after many years of shyness and stupidity, I found that she actually got answers and I was left with an unasked question. Questions are healthy things, challenging things, scary things.
I finished the book, The War of Art, last night. It was a good read; very challenging and thought provoking. I like books like that, the ones the make you think about your life, your art, your own weaknesses and procrastination. Near the closing of the book, the author presents two questions that have been rattling around in my being the past day or so.
“If you are feeling really anxious, what do you do?”
“If you were the last person on earth, would you still do it?”
I believe that these two questions determine the life of an artist, a musician, or any creative being that ever has felt the call towards something other than a life of mediocrity and simply just getting by.
These two questions challenge me. I know at times, I can answer the first question with an answer birthed in the caverns of a musician’s soul. I pick up a guitar. I go to the keyboard. I run for my moleskin and pen. I grab my camera. Yet, in all of life’s craziness, sometime I run to sleep, or overeating, or endless amounts of draining television that just helps me avoid my procrastination and the creative forces that are screaming from somewhere deep inside of me.
That should change. I feel like I used to be a person of such discipline and organization, yet years of hardship and learning some lessons the hard way seem to cause me to run to places I know will only slow me down or take me off track.
That needs to change.
I have been carrying the second question with me all day. If there was no one else to hear my music, to look at my photos, to read my words, would I still persevere? Would I still take the time to create something of worth, even if i was the only one that would be there to realize the birth of it all?
I would love to answer with a resounding yes. But, at times I feel like I’m always trying to please someone or something. Deep down inside though, I know I couldn’t live without the idea of creating something, of writing music, of picking up a camera and discovering an aspect of the world I didn’t see before, of picking up my moleskin and writing my thoughts out on the pages. I also know that God has placed a calling upon my life that can never remain silent. It has been something that was birthed in me long ago and still burns daily, as a constant reminder.
I’m still going to ponder these for a while. I need to.
How would you answer these questions?
Do they dig deep in to you like they did in me?
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