I don’t want to be afraid of bright colors, or new sounds, or big love, or risky decisions, or strange experiences, or weird endeavors, or sudden changes, or even failure.
I think perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear.
No, when I refer to “creative living,” I am speaking more broadly. I’m talking about living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.
Those girls are on the road to trouble,” I heard an older woman say about us one night, as we were staggering down the street drunk – and that woman was absolutely right. What she didn’t understand, though, is that trouble is what we wanted. Oh, our youthful needs! Oh, the deliciously blinding yearnings of the young – which inevitably take us right to the edges of cliffs, or trap us in cul-de-sacs of our design.
At some point, you really just have to finish your work and release it as is-if only so you can go on and make other things with a glad and determined heart.
I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.
There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of this family, and so I will never exclude you from our activities, but still – your suggestions will never be followed. You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote.
Nothing will uproot your life more violently than true love – at least as far as I’ve always witnessed.
Learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration is part of the job o fa creative person... Frustration is not an interruption of your process; frustration is the process.
I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay the bills.
We’re miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and morality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character. We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme Self who is eternally at peace.
I’m just so weary, Vivian. But I love this kid so much, sometimes I think it will break me in half. Is that the dirty trick? Is this how they get mothers to ruin their lives for their children? By tricking them into loving them so much? Maybe. It’s not a bad strategy.
But doesn’t that make sense? That the infinite would be, indeed... infinite? That even the most holy amongst us would only be able to see scattered pictures of the eternal picture at any given time? And that maybe if we could collect those pieces and compare them, a story about God would begin to emerge that resembles and includes everyone?
We are not alien visitors to this planet, after all but natural residents and relatives of every living entity here. This earth is where we came from and where we’ll all end up when we die, and during the interim, it is our home, And there’s no way we can ever hope to understand ourselves if we don’t at least marginally understand our home.
I can only be in charge of producing the work itself. That’s a hard enough job. I refuse to take on additional jobs, such as trying to police what anybody thinks about my work once it leaves my desk.
This is what I’ve found about life, as I’ve gotten older: you start to lose people, Angela. It’s not that there is ever a shortage of people – oh, heavens no. It is merely that – as the years pass – there comes to be a shortage of your people. The ones you loved. The ones who knew the people that you both loved. The ones who know your whole history. Those people start to be plucked away by death, and they are awfully hard to replace after they go.
As for things that could not be changed, they must stoically be endured.
Your art not only doesn’t have to be original, in other words; it also doesn’t have to be important.
It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case if that I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something.
Who the hell do you think you are?” your darkest interior voices will demand. “It’s funny you should ask,” you can reply. “I’ll tell you who I am: I am a child of God, just like anyone else. I am a constituent of this universe. I have invisible spirit benefactors who believe in me, and who labor.