I've been posting every day as the result of this very topic. Eric Maisel, author of, "Coaching the Artist Within" talks of passionately making meaning with the depth of experience and insight that comes from honoring the struggle to create for a long time.
I started my blog to be useful to clients. As a counselor, I realize psychotherapy isn't something one does every day. Years pass before you may feel the need to return, if at all. It's for those times , when you're living your real life, that I wanted to create this blog.
But just the act of creating; the mere intention to create awakens thoughts that destroy desire and feelings that drive the courage from your heart. Which is why you must create. Maybe it's creating the family life you want for your kids; giving them experiences and memories that will shape a healthy adulthood or creating your professional life by finally putting together that innovative app with will help build a better future you dream about. It may mean simply to create that song, or poem, or screenplay or sculpture that's sitting in the back closet waiting for your return.
Instead, you sit on the couch and watch a reality show when you have a few moments, or sip another glass of wine and float away on that foggy warmth, or conscientiously disappear into your kids lives; anything to distract you from deciding to create. This nagging question about whether or not you have the time or energy to create what's in your heart can be kept at bay just at the edge of your mind. Ebbing to shore only when you allow a moment of stillness to wrap around you.
Yet it's still there, for all of us. Eric Maisel talks of deciding to matter. Will you decide to matter? Deciding to live a life in service of your values, creating that will serve your potential and answer the question, "Will I leaving something I value and cherish behind after I'm gone"?
Part of deciding to matter is to create what fulfills you ideals even when the result of all your effort may not be what you hoped. It's not using the end result as the reason to begin. It's to begin--to create--no matter what the outcome.
As Dr. Maisel describes it, "Regardless whether or not the universe is meaningful, of whether my odds of succeeding are long or short, of everything at both the existential level and at the practical level" ("Coaching the Artist Within by Eric Maisel).
Maybe your kid won't be a baseball star or a Hollywood diva. So your idea won't get you a patent and make you a mint. And so what if your screenplay will only see the light of day at the local writer's group. You're creating and you're living a valued life--your valued life and that's all the meaning any of us really need.
I started thinking earlier this evening that I wouldn't post tonight. No one is actually following me are they? What would it matter? By I thought, "create, or what?" So I dragged myself away from Hell's Kitchen, and put the glass of wine down and started to create.
What's your take on making meaning? Of creating in the ordinary world of everyday life?
Recent Comments