It isn’t easy to love what you do. Or do what you love. I am fortunate in that sense. I got both. If you know me, you’d know already what I mean. If you don’t, well, it’s my love for words and stories and the immense power they hold in connecting you with yourself and another.
My only regret, or guilt, or handicap (whatever you want to label it as) is that I don’t write enough. And by enough, I mean every day. Every hour. Every second. And today has been an important day in the sense that it has made me see all too clearly, things that are obvious, things I have thought of a million times before, but things I haven’t sold my soul to.
Van Gogh is playing a critical role in my life at the moment
I’m reading about Van Gogh, or a fictional re-telling of his life, written by Irving Stone and it’s teaching me much about art, passion and life’s bitter struggles. There is something so painful, so poignant, so powerful about the words, that I can’t help but think, does life have any meaning without art? And does anyone truly ever understand an artist? While I will explore this in much greater detail over at Of BnB, what I have to ponder over for now (and really, really start implementing) is, to learn to breathe and eat and live my passion. The way Van Gogh did. I am no artist. I am not even remotely capable of being mentioned in the same sentence as him. But I can learn from him. And if his life has any lesson, it is this – if you are true to your art, your work, your obsession, it will someday be true to you.
Write I must
Which brings me back to what I began with. I don’t write often even though I wish I did and it constantly plays on my mind. A tiny feather in my cap today was the appreciation I got for my writing of Alenka Sottler’s interview. I love unearthing and carving out stories and while I don’t particularly hunger for credit or comments or critical acclaim, I hunger for the creative process. And I must write as often as I can, even if it is an incoherent gibberish of all the thoughts running in my mind at a given moment like this blog post is.
To speak of goals or to not speak?
The more out and about you are in the open, talking about yourself and your goals the more likely you are to achieve them. You can form your tribe, get support, get contacts, get work. Or maybe not? An equally popular view says sharing your goals with the world makes you less likely to achieve them because talking about something gives you a sense of having lived through it and you feel as if you have already achieved your target thus making it less likely that you will. I don’t know what to believe. For every theory out there, someone comes along to debunk it. I only believe in myself. And for now, that is enough. And I have a simple, straightforward, damn clear goal – to create.
So there you have it. I have in the past promised to write daily and I haven’t kept that promise. I have tried holding myself accountable to quantifiable goals like writing a 1,000 words a day and I have barely sustained myself 3 days in continuity. The fact is, while I don’t lack motivation or prompts or time, I lack a willingness to always speak up and out in a public space, this blog included. I intend to change that now. I will rave and rant and rage all I can. I will be incoherent and inconsistent and insane if that’s what it takes. One moment I will talk about something profound like having found the meaning of existence and the next I will give myself up into a 5,000 word rambling of the meaninglessness of everything. What I write about matters not. That I write, does. Much like in the Van Gogh’s spirit. His charcoal drawings. His watercolours. His oils. Sketch after sketch after sketch done in feverish excitement. Tubes after tubes after tubes of clours sucked out dry. That is a life worth living. Even in penury. Even in the absence of acknowledgement. Even in the absence of respect.
Sometimes, life is bigger than who you are. It is about what you create and leave behind.
Fluid Reflections 