as the new year drew to a close, i was mulling over my own creative suffering. so many endless projects, drafts i’ve been meaning to finish. all of them raw and outdated, embarrassing really, glaringly different from everything i imagined my art would look like. i lay on my bed, scattered papers and all, trying for a millionth time to think my way out of, well, myself essentially.
the realisation didn’t come all of a sudden, of course, it sat and stared at me from across the room, expanded and stretched, silently, testing the waters, showing up in between cracks of my inherited ambition. if i were truly honest with myself, i would say i could hear it rustling for a long, long time. if i were truly honest with myself, i know i would say i could have ended all of this way sooner.
point is, no one (not a single person, i mean it, nobody at all) is standing over me and counting what i have and have not done. it’s all in my head, all these achievements and striving, all this pointless pride, all this bizarre determination, almost salmon-like against the current. i’m not a child anymore, and yet i have found a way to scold myself into submission. i have become my own guard, a prison.
i am trying to think of more to say, but maybe there is nothing more to be said about it.
i have become a prison.
there is, of course, something to be said about perseverance and trying despite, about doing something over and over and over again (and i’ve been there done that, persevered for so long, and what if that’s enough? do i really have to keep promises that no longer apply? persevere through ideas that no longer feel like me?).
a year ago, i would have screamed yes. i would have clenched my teeth and got to work. buried my head in my ass and got things done.
but now the year is done, and i’ve turned the corner. now, i argue, red wine in hand (for the sake of painting an academic picture, i hate red wine), maybe there is something to be said about leaving things behind. about enjoying life as it is now, about not having to do anything to deserve it. about throwing away without thinking, cutting the rope that’s been weighing me down, going forward and forward and forward, no looking behind my shoulder.
i know why this attachment is here, i know it’s trying to protect me. my terribly sad, dark, lonely attachment, calling on me to hold onto the past. that’s where he is, still, where he’ll always be.
what if i change too much, so much he would not recognise me?
i digress.
all i want to say is, i think it’s time to throw away without thinking, cut the rope that’s been weighing me down, go forward and forward and forward, no more looking behind my shoulder.
i think it’s time to consider everything an experiment and let go of ideas that no longer serve me, to shoot the guard and burn the prison, to reignite the passion and do everything for the passion, not for this sick, choking sense of duty.
i guess how i will end this is by asking:
where are you creating your own suffering?
what is something you’re holding onto even though it causes you literal pain?
what would happen if you just let go?