I summon the Genie

Rome was built from the ruins, I thought, as I climbed out of my pit of despair. Phew, that was exhausting. I sat, perched on the edge of the hole I had dug for myself, legs dangling, perspiration pouring, dirt smeared across my cheeks. I looked down and then up. I looked for a sign.

Instead, this week, I received a series of revelations. So, in no particular order I am going to share them with (lucky) you.

No one turned up on a government-sanctioned mission to rescue me with a half dozen engineers and a special, rocket-like chute... but many hands reached down from the light and offered to extract me from my hole. I gratefully took these hands. To be alone is sometimes a physical reality, but to feel alone is a choice. The truth is, there are people everywhere, friends, and if you are willing to wave a flag from inside the cavity you have fallen into, your brave signal will lure fellow cave dwellers from their own pits in droves. Invite someone over coffee. Phone a friend. Listen while someone else tells you about their much, much worse situation. Relay and relate. Talk to a stranger at a bar or at the library. There are at least 100 ways not to be alone. So, I picked more than one.

Lesson number two: When you set demanding goals, be they financial, professional, creative or otherwise it is worthwhile to first find out what tools, collateral or energy might be required to meet said goals; as opposed to projecting a deep, dark road littered with difficult obstacles between yourself and where you ultimately want to be. This imagined clutter is difficult to clear up once projected. Start with facts, rather than assumptions and the way to the finish line will look a little less like Jurassic Park during Cyclone Tracy and a little more like the yellow brick road to OZ.

I have been reminded once again that my life's purpose is my property. I own it and I shape it. This idea takes some getting used to. Some days, it feels like I stole it and so I hide it behind the couch until I find someone worthy to give it back to. Then I remember that there is no one more qualified to handle it than me. It's "if you build it they will come" versus "they have built it so let's go visit and do what we're told while we're there". Start small, somebody told me. You might feel like an ant wading in a puddle of almost insurmountable expectation, but keep your head up, swim and soon you will grow.

Getting back to the idea of life purpose made me do a lot of thinking about creativity, both my own and as a general concept. I was referred to a TED Talk by writer, Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity. She talks about artists being held accountable and how the creative 'genie' once considered to be a divine enigma, visited upon unsuspecting artists is now considered to inhabit the self. We are on the look out for a (human) creative genius rather than the concept of 'creative genius'. With works pending critical judgment even prior to creation, you can see how one's capacity for inspiration or transcendence could be severely incapacitated by society's jury, waiting with baited breath, tapping fingers and feet, as the artist of today tries to "bring it home".

Whether this judgment is real or imagined, there is a certain truth in an artist's journey being less valued and respected today, than it may have been historically. Artistry was once revered as a dignified and envied vocation. Capitalism sure has a lot to answer for. We shake in our boots at any career that does not play a hearty role in meeting the household budget. There is no creative venture where anguish is not anticipated in advance, where fear for what the future holds is not felt. A sense lingers that there is a danger to our wellbeing, psychologically, socially, financially, if we continue to pursue such fanciful prospects.

And here comes my next revelation...I hereby conclude that this festering attitude in our collective subconscious can go and fuck itself. Artists in all forms should be treated like a protected species, in a societal construct that enables, encourages and fosters creativity to thrive. Let's tear down the emotional firewall that stands between what we think we should be doing and what we were put on this earth to do. Our personal security settings are good and keeping bad things out, but they can also block good things from coming in. If you put up a fence, you always have to climb up to see over. It's protection at a price; quite literally, the cost of living.

Humans are just that. Human. We can be vessels for something greater if we are open and ready. So, show up, be present. Nothing can be achieved by you if you aren't actually there. A transition is just the first step in a revolution. Releasing the genie requires time and space. You have to be willing to claw your way back out of the hole.

Sit on the side with you legs dangling and look around for a sign.

This week, I opened my eyes and an opportunity presented itself. For the first time in a long time I am genuinely motivated, propelled towards something that could feed my soul, for which the entire point is fulfillment of a greater purpose. No money will change hands.

If it is meant to be, I will have another good reason to get out of bed each morning. If it is not, I will dust myself off, keep my head up and swim in my puddle until I outgrow it. And I will not swim alone...all creatures great and small are welcome.

My coffee shop, the Oracle

I recently set out to challenge myself, to write something other than a post for this blog, a communication strategy or a copywriting job. Set a goal, people encouraged me. Writer folk espouse that competitions can provide the necessary impetus, setting a deadline for you without compromise, a looming date whereby a piece of work must be polished, printed, proofed and posted.

I am used to crafting careful messages, sharply defining the complex, crystallising a blur of technicality into a stark transparency. Sure, I sometimes weave in a witty repartee and experience the odd flash of (dare I say) brilliance during my personal indulgence in developing prose; but generally, I have made my living by making the confusing, clear and the indifferent, meaningful.

So, when faced with the task of drawing outside the lines, dancing with the shadows of subtlety that deliberately push a reader into the dark, I was more perplexed than I expected to be. Skills I learned long ago seemed to elude me. I had put them down somewhere and could no longer locate them. What I had deemed a minor professional transition was suddenly exacerbated to overwhelming. The elephant I had planned to eat in small bites multiplied into a herd, and I began to lose my appetite.

Extracting the required story from my creative being proved similar to the intricate game we played as children called Operation, where you lay on your stomach wielding tweezers to remove tiny plastic bones from an inanimate, two-dimensional man.

My procrastination was excruciating and the blame splashed everywhere but on me. I couldn’t write in an unclean house. I was hungry, thirsty, tired, could not resist watching endless repeat episodes of Californication. I struggled to be creative at the same desk where I conjured up the corporate devil. Fed up and in a flabbergasted effort to refresh and re-boot, I took myself out and down the street to put pen to paper, the good old fashioned way.

Our strip of ‘urbia offers a plethora of options for caffeination. I select the most eclectic of places, the one that vibrates pure, haphazard, hippie randomness in order to enhance the flow of my so called artistic juices. To the right side of the front door, there is a stout blackboard and on it I read a message. Had it been delivered in a bottle, I would have sworn it had been (pre)scribed, just for me:
If you will it, it will no longer be a dream.

How encouraging. After my third latte, it is not only encouraging, but occurring. Ink and paper finally connect and there is more evidence to speak of than when man made contact with the moon. Scribbles return home to be relayed to trusty Daddy Mac. Words front up to numerous iterations and renunciations on screen. Cobbled together, it’s parchment by patchwork and along with some inherent failings, a conclusive draft comes to exist. A story strewn from beginning to end, which in itself seems to be an act of protest against nature. My own nature, that is.

Mould of a masterpiece now etched, I pro-actively seek perspective from a deliberately diminutive number of supposedly like-minded commentators. This serves as a stinging reminder that it is always better to rip the band-aid off yourself. Getting someone else to do it... it is not designed to hurt them. My small band of merry people inflicted many wounds and they used a range of weapons. Some of them technical, some credible, some subjective and some intuitive. I see a bad moon rising and I am remiss to wear my armour. Resilience, I had forgotten, is the formal wear of the artist.

(And despair is the lonely friend, who always wears black and lives in a cold stone cottage, just out of town; close enough to visit occasionally.)

My recovery is week-long until a fresh day when I wake up clean and pick up an empty basket to start cherry picking the wreckage. The story I gave birth to is never the same and I accept that perhaps it shouldn’t be. I polish my beaten resolve and try chanting a more upbeat, mantra. Opinions are like bums and everybody has one, or so I am told.

I meet the competition d-day and after I mail the yellow envelope, I am still rumbling with mild dissatisfaction at the final product but I am relieved to let it go. I decide on a coffee, so it is back to 'caffeine ecelectica' for another dose. I pass the blackboard standing guard and today the message is even more fitting and profound;

Use what talent you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. [Henry Van Dyke]

Well. How about that.