it has been just over a year since i began my leave of absence and started doing this artistic thing full-time. and what a year it has been! life as an artist has presented an interesting host of challenges, and while i by no means have it figured out (just ask my savings account...) i have stumbled upon some encouraging bits of wisdom from others. you know that mindlessly anxious / lazy / jittery / tired / forgettingsomething / i'vebeenwaitinginlinetoolong feeling? no? uh let's trade lives. yes? then you know what i'm getting at here, and it's what author Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. he looks at living a creative life as a battle. in a dramatic way, he says
"The artist ... has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell."
but it's kind of true, you know? I look at the obvious, boring, stereotypical things that i worry about on a day-to-day basis (how much money am i making? will auditions ever go well? am i working hard enough? is anyone ever going to WANT to pay money to see stuff that i create? do i look stupid? does this outfit look crazy?) and i think you have to get to a point where you're just so tired of hearing it, in your head, every day, and you just have to "do" it anyway. life, i mean. i also get paralyzed with anxiety (aka fear) over some of the slightly-less-stereotypical issues my life choices are presenting. (and i do only mean slightly. clearly i'm not struck by plights that the rest of humanity isn't also dealing with. stick with me, i'm still in my 20s, i'm not that mature yet.) such as: would i be making more of an impact on the world if i were doing something else? am i too hard on myself? do i push myself far enough? where's that line? could i be more inspiring to the people around me if i were xyz? is this really what my life's work should be? yikes.
which is why i feel really encouraged when he writes
"Self-doubt can be an ally. This is because it serves as an indicator of aspiration. It reflects love, love of something we dream of doing, and desire, desire to do it. If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are.
The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death."
okay. so the fear is apparently a good thing. and i'm going for it anyway. it's not a matter of feeling supremely confident. or stopping the endless questions in my head. it's about not really listening and just focusing on the task at hand: creating. and i'm learning that when i rearrange my thinking and decide to just go with this creative path, it kind of breaks down and i actually get to be flooded with...
gratitude.
and that's WAY nicer. i just get to feel unbelievably grateful for the city i'm in, the friendly guy in the deli on the corner, my amazingly talented and fun siblings, my friends who still somehow love me even though i'm bad at calling them, this healthy 25-year-old body that is imperfect and wonderfully useful.
so here's to year two of being a professional artist, full of fear, full of gratitude, workin' it out anyway. who's with me?!
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