Being honest doesn't mean telling people everything
I found a site called: gapingvoid.com and I just loved it.
I read an extract of the guy's book and it is really insightful. The part about having pillars.
I'll explain.
For a lot of us, we have this idea that to "make art" we need lots of equipment and props, the right style, the right "artsy" clothes, and to "be a creative person".
Well actually we already are creative people. It is inherent in our nature to create.
So many hobbies have been started getting all the right clothes, all the best equipment, only for it to pile up and collect dust in the back of the wardrobe for years after the interest has passed.
Like dancing and ballet. You need the right hairstyle, the right shoes, the perfect tutu, the best physique. For music you need the best guitar, with the coolest body and perfect wood for the neck, custom made, etc, etc.
That's rubbish. It may make you feel better to have the best things, but they are not necessary to the experience of creation.
If you want to dance, dance! If you want to sing, sing!
Also I want to apply this to another area. If you want to love, love!
Sometimes I've had the feeling that there would be a moment, one so perfect that I'd instantly be this new being. I would be beautiful and smart and clever, and Worthy of love. Finally! But how do I know that I am not all those things already? Because I think I'm not? Maybe I think I haven't reached the unattainable plateau but for some people, I am beautiful, or I am smart, and I am worthy of love. Already! Right now, just as I am. The only thing that was in the way was a notion of comparison. Am I smarter than someone else. Maybe? Am I uglier than the person next to me? Maybe, but it's irrelevant. There's just me, there's just you, there's just them, there's just us. We are who we are, and in our unique nature we all can be the best.
Now I realise that everyone is (from the moment they are born) deserving of love. They deserve to have someone with them, or even to just have friends to care about them, and do nice things for no reason other than friendship.
When I write I am waiting for a moment when I get a surge of genius that flows from me and my writing finally is perfect. I don't believe in that anymore. Maybe my writing will only be read by a handful of people, and some of it won't be understood completely, but who cares?
There was an emphasis in my mind that writing needs to be read by other people, or commented on, and accepted to have any real value. I suppose in a world where media, books, films, songs, etc. are all thrown forward with the title "best seller", or an actor who is "award-winning" the common, everyday writer thinks they have to strive for that. Commercial recognition and some kind of quantifiable gauge of progress is what we are pushed to believe is the goal. But for the true artiste, this is not the case. It may be a desire, but it is usually a distraction and sometimes an aid (money), to the creation of their art.
My question is, why do people want to be famous? For recognition, for an ego boost, or validation that they are better than people in the same field? Yes, competition and money, and sex, and vanity, and self-esteem.
My writing is a small bit erratic at the moment. That could be from a lack of discipline, or just the unrestrained flow of thoughts at the moment. Either way, I am glad because I can write almost exactly what I think. I have just created this bit of writing. These are my thoughts, and my observations.
Maybe many people over the years have thought the exact same things but never wrote them down...
I always wonder about that. Or letters never received, books and art works destroyed like in the Bonfire of the Vanities. Thinking over all these things, I feel...
We don't create something to have it exist forever, well many do as a plea to posterity, but it's just an illusion. Immortality is just product of human fiction. With this thought in mind I am happy that I can write in this moment, and the idea that not many people will read this seems less important. Nothing lasts forever, so we should live for now, in the best way we can. Dance for now, sing for now, learn, create, talk, think and do, for just this moment. Maybe in this moment we feel shame, fear, anger, guilt, but we just have to remember, nothing lasts forever.