Overexposed

     Here in the west we've nearly eliminated all semblance of ritual from our daily lives.  From waking up without greeting or giving thanks to the sun , to going to bed without wondering at the moon.  We're more apt to ritualize our morning coffee and roll over to sleep after the 10 o'clock news.  I'm not entering into the debate of whether we as a society actually need rituals to thrive, just noting the near absence of them.
     Over the weekend I was thinking about an issue that many people who create art have.  Which is that many, including myself, are not comfortable with being referred to in public as an artist.  "John Doe, I would like to introduce you to Rob.  He is an artist."  Cringe...It's an introduction guaranteed to make me squirm.  Having been exposed to other artists' thoughts on this one I know I'm not alone.  In fact, I would guess I am among the majority. 
     Of course, there are artists who are comfortable with the title.  Maybe after having involved themselves in the arts for some time or they've just accepted the title as being inescapable.  Or maybe they feel deserving of the handle.  For me, the word conjures up visions of saint-like souls devoting the entirety of their lives to the practice and perfecting of their art through history.  Be they painters, musicians, poets, novelists, playwrights, composers or whatever flavor their expression has evolved into; they are among an elite group that is set aside from the rest of the population throughout history.  People who have proven themselves to be dedicated to their vision and pursued it as long and as far as they could.  It's an exalted place in my mind.  To get there the path is long, and the passage narrow.
     So when is it that a girl becomes a woman?  After what trial or test?  How many are there before the boy has earned the distinction of being a man?  It's analogous to when has someone who makes art earned the title their heroes assert themselves with?  I suspect most, even in that exalted group, never feel/felt truly at home with it.  When have you earned the right to rub elbows with the divine?  To break intellectual bread with the masters and meet their gaze as one who belongs?

Salted Daydreams

     Last week I was introduced to Bronnie Ware's article Regrets of the Dying, linked by permission, and was struck by the the top three regrets stated by most people while suffering from a terminal illness.  Numbers four and five I'll pass on as I think friends are good companions but have found them to be unreliable when needed most and that happiness is where you find it in life and suspect the people regretting not having enough of it in their lives are for reasons that relate back to first three stated regrets to begin with.

     The first three regrets profoundly resonated with me.  They are the very reasons why I quit my job last August and am now pursuing painting full-time.  Along with the fact that mercury poisoning has left me incapable of that type of employment but that's for another post.  As stated in an earlier post, I would be working diligently and along would come some aloof daydream and obliterate any current train of thought I was having.  My mind would be forcefully taken hostage and off it would sail into the wild blue meanderings of a strangled soul. 
     One of these in particular came to me like a revelation.  I felt my life was hopelessly empty, being definitively ground away in the fathomless pit of rotting pointlessness that is the toil of earning a paycheck.  It was January 4th, 2008 at 10:30am.  I wrote a note to myself that I now have glued into one of my sketchbooks as a reminder to myself of the pitfall that awaits me should I give in again.  The note I wrote was both a question and an answer quoted verbatim here:

I need to set a long term goal.  Need to ask myself what am I going to do with my life, then work slowly every day towards getting there.  If it's to become a self employed artist, then draw every day, or read an artist mag every day, or paint every day, or take a lesson, or see a tutorial online but every day try and work towards a long term goal.  If I don't this life appears to be, and may very well be, completely meaningless.

     It was obviously an informal note to myself.  "Get busy living or get busy dying", to quote King's  Shawshank Redemption.  But a note so sincere and so personally heartfelt by me that I have stayed true to it ever since, and intend to stay true to it until I'm dead.  Since I was about 17 or 18 years old I've made it a goal of mine to gather experiences like wildflowers and populate my life with them in the conscious effort to avoid being one of  Ferdinand Celine's "unfortunates" who die in misery, wallowing in regret.  As he put it, "Most people don't die until the last moment; others start twenty years in advance, sometimes more." 

     I can't say that every day of my life is filled with exotica, but every day has been filled with possibility once I concluded to resolutely, almost militantly, follow my daydreams into the wild blue meanderings.  Every day I make a conscious effort to advance a little further down my path, however small the activity may be, however large the project may be, I take some step in getting closer to making life mean something.

What dreams have you been chasing?  What dreams are you dying for?