The Opportunity to Live My Truth
In this series I have written about many personal reasons I love being an artist. But, bottom line, the very most important thing about being an artist, for me, is that I get to live my truth. It’s what I fear losing more than anything else. It’s what I continue to fight for; it’s what I continue to believe in.
I hear from so many of you who are still striving for that. Some of you haven’t found what it is yet, while others have, but not how to live it and, of course, this is so because living it is not made easy. We, each and every one of us, yearn toward it. Yet the culture in which we live asks something else from us.
Our society is founded on capitalism, and a basic tenant of capitalism is that the economy must continually grow or it collapses. As a result, much about our lives is supposed to be geared toward financial growth, production and purchasing. Our public school system is built to educate followers, I believe, for this reason, not free thinkers. We are not meant to dream. Does IBM need dreamers? We are not meant to ask questions (although I think this is changing–Steve Jobs taught us all something about the value of questioning). But, generally, our culture asks that we follow a career path and make money to sustain the system–enough to buy plenty of stuff.
I recently watched a movie titled Powaqqatsi, with a friend. From the Hopi language, powaq-sorcerer + qatsi-life, it is a noun that means an entity, a way of life, that consumes the life forces of other beings in order to further its own life. It was a very powerful movie. There was no dialog, only stunning music by Phillip Glass and image after image of human beings, en masse, marching to someone else’s drum.
And maybe this is yet another reason why art is so precious: Those of us who choose to make it must leave the mainstream system we’ve been indoctrinated into, which isn’t easy. For most of us the financial rewards are spotty. Our families worry for us; some think of us as irresponsible. I don’t have a pension plan or a 401K. I will be working until the day I die. Picasso famously said, “Death? It will merely interrupt my work.” So it is for me.
But I possess something priceless. I live within the freedom to pursue the light of my life. I wake each day with the choice available to me to embrace my essence, to live the truth as it is known in my soul. It is rarely easy, but it is always elevating. It is, I believe, our most basic human right, to walk upon this earth as we were meant to.
I wish it for each and every one of us.
Love to you all,
Jeane
This article was useful when looking for:
- 10 reasons why i love to be an artist (19)
- how to live as an artist (12)
As we all walk upon the earth – as we were meant to be…it may look to others that one is somehow broken, and yet IMHO we are all gifted with the celebration of being in a human body – the key and conduit to listening our wisest self…and as a group we may act in ways that appear to be rather dysfunctional…as a group we are afforded the opportunity to become more solid in our inner listening and fulfillment of our souls yearnings. Blessed are for those that consciously strive daily for that action on inner messages…perhaps with added colors of insecurity and fears of one origin or another. Artists and coal miners alike are finding their way in the human evolution of processing being humans with what seem like burdens and are actually gifts. We all play in our adventure of this life with the reality of having death be merely an interruption…
Of course you are absolutely, precisely right. Thank you for your insight and for helping to shift my perspective.
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Love your quote by Picasso. Made me think of my grandfather who painted until he died. I am convinced that it is what kept him alive. Towards the end when he became demented, he lost his ability to paint but every day he would sit in front of a canvas with brush in hand. At night one of my uncles would retouch the painting to help my grandfather along and the next morning my grandfather would paint over it all. This went on for about three months until my grandfather passed away. Watching him live his truth has been an inspiration to me and has helped me have faith in this guiding force that inspires us to follow our truth and have the courage to break with convention.
A lovely, poignant story. Thank you for sharing it. Your grandfather was a painter until he left this earth. There is no better example than that. And you are carrying it forward for him, as I am for my dad and my great grandmother.