There’s something different in the air, something so different and yet it’s taken me months to see. It’s loosely connected to that belief that children all have at one time or another that the really cool thing about being adult will be that they can do anything they want any time and in any quantity all at their whim. Then they grow up.
The best machines are built for a specific purpose and have components designed to support that purpose and human lives mimic that. Each day has certain parts that must work certain ways or the power to move one’s life along is hampered. Adults find themselves constrained every bit as much as they were when they were kids but the constraints are theirs, accepted the same as the necessity of machining tolerances are in an engine. Precision matters. Specification matters. At least, they matter if one wants to get anywhere.
Children find out it’s not just a big party.
True, some people cheat and others manage to be supported by inheritance or windfall or other people but they’re constrained also.
Some of them do turn their lives into a big party, which is fine if that supports their ultimate goals and floats their boat. Most of us want to be important and to contribute. We want to have purpose. So we craft our lives to that end and make things happen that otherwise never would.
Those who push, win. Those who don’t push for excellence probably won’t accidentally achieve it. I’ve always pushed for that, but not for the lust of fame or recognition or wealth or power. I like succeeding but never felt a need to let the standard flavors of success dominate my choices. Money has not motivated me except to have enough for my needs. Power and dominion have not enticed me except to secure my basic freedoms. Fame and recognition have never interested me beyond what might be needed to establish a reputation for excellence and good character. I pay the bills and try to ensure my creative freedoms.
As a result, I’ve never had much money and I’ve stayed out of the lime light. It was many years before I could write and publish, mostly because I preferred privacy and that was best secured via anonymity.
I don’t just exist, though and don’t want to simply exist. With talent on tap, thoughts to express, and a burning desire for self sufficiency I pushed past the safety barrier when the conditions were ripe for that change and now I’m like a ship at sea with provisions sufficient for a journey of discovery and the hope that legitimately attainable treasures await me there.
Today I was caught in that old trap of trying to bend the talents under my command that are most obvious toward a strictly socially acceptable benefit. Then it occurred that there may not be another chance to try a new approach, or at least not a better chance. I know that farmers do not leave the electric fence on all the time, but instead train the animals to expect it to be on. The reason for the fence is to meet the farmer’s needs. How many creative people limit their careers by staying willingly within barriers that may not even exist or matter, but which are believed to exist and matter by them as they allow themselves to be corralled?
The best course of action is to do what I love and do well. This is not a rudderless trip without navigation but it’s one of discovery with the belief that it will lead to a new life with new possibilities and great benefits. Some tell me it will lead to ruin. In fact it could lead to ruin. Some say it will dissolve my safety net (most surely it shall). But isn’t the seed that a farmer plants edible? Yet it goes into the dirt, never to be consumed as food. Does the garden yield a meal any time soon after being planted? Nope.
I don’t know how this is going to turn out. It is risky. I am putting everything on the line. But I know that in negotiations, to not ask is to get the answer you already have, “no!” so there is nothing to be lost in seeking. It’s the nature of people to act, rather than be acted upon.
Based on the fact that the reason people exist is so that they may have joy and bolstered by the truth that it is the design of human kind to lead and act independently rather than simply be acted upon and tossed to and fro by external forces then I have to do this. I have to seriously devote this journey to securing it’s hoped for outcome and by so doing secure happiness for myself and possibly others for generations to come.
There’s a reason I’m this flavor of unique.
I’m going to trust my gut and it says that the reason for any of my creative projects should not be based on the passions and attitudes of others. It’s not their talent that’s in play. I’m the steward, so I’m calling the shots with it.
I realize there’s more to seeding and cultivating a crop than spreading seeds and pulling weeds. I’ve put a lot of time into learning the mechanics, but now it’s no hobby. It’s real. So I’ll quit second guessing the course I’m on and get this ship under way. It’s provisioned and I’m called by such powers as I hope will guide me. Fingers crossed and full sails! Leaving port. There is something in the air – the realization that I have the freedom to pursue this journey and that it must be done!
