Don’t blink, or you may miss it. Keep your hand on the brush and your eye on the canvas at all times. Never let your fingers wander from the true force. Never let your mind waver before the blank face. All things in the world must wait until you finish. All chores in the day must pause until you arrive at the end of your work.
Your work is your art. You are an artist–and it is your job to accomplish your craft. But be aware there will be roadblocks and hurdles. Distractions will constantly draw you back.
You must not give up.
Even if days, weeks, months–or years go by–get back to it. Sometimes your heart takes breaks from what it loves the most–so that it may take less for granted in the long run. Sometimes you have to take up writing, while your painting rests. Sometimes you have to pick up the guitar, while your writing breaks.
Life is a fecund maelstrom, spinning about the axle of your creative spine–giving wings to your productive habits in organic phases. People are puppets to their stages. Use the seasons of your maturation wisely. Plan well ahead, giving much cushion to the heavier projects.
Want to write a book? Practice for ten years first. Want to paint one masterpiece? Paint a hundred to get warmed up. Want to play one perfect song? Play a host of horrible anthems alone, then go out and deliver the one maverick that broke through.
When you get tired of a discipline, pick up a fresh one–until the wellspring of your muse comes back again. This way you will work your way up like a spiral, and produce more masterful art than you ever dreamed of doing–in less time than anyone could have ever thought possible.
People will ask how you did it, however, and you will have to answer, that you planned well ahead. You will say that you knew that a plethora of practice almost always preceded accolades, and you didn’t want to take the risk that you might not get beginner’s luck, so you put your nose to the hard work.
These are our dreams, after all. You and I share a common youth, where we imagined growing up to fill the shoes of those artists we so admired. This is not frivolous wishfulness. We did not spend those years dreaming just for fun. We will not be forgotten as part of the fools who wish with their eyes closed. We will not take our eyes off the focal length of our ages.
Every year you must re-assess where you’ve been–where you’re going–and what needs to change. Every year something must change, because nobody ever gets it right the first or penultimate time.
We will pass through the illusory gates that have kept us from claiming our birthright to our inner artistic geniuses, like ghosts against the flow of time. All unnecessary distractions will fall away from our daily routines. Time will nearly stand still as we learn to cram in the practice, blowing months away in hypnotic passion over the stirring pots of our creations.
Then, when we re-emerge to see the work from the forest and the trees, we will surprise even ourselves with what we have done, as if someone from a different body had done it. But it will be ours, and pride will become a hollow concept. It will no longer seem like such a big thing. We will see that the blueprint was within us the whole time, and it just took patience to grow.
We will finally remember all control is letting go, and that we have been strangling our own artistic souls by trying too hard. We will remember that we already had it right long ago, as children–when we were more free to be creative.
Then, finally, we will see that art is not a dream to chase. We got lost along the way, and confused success with the unattainable. We confused art with something that was a gift–not a birthright to anybody who dared care about it.
People who say they could never do it, never even wanted to try. Others who wanted to try, but didn’t–came to think falsely, that they weren’t good enough just the way they were.
Art is not the power of the few. We are all masters-in-training, in the art of our lives–and a few of us decide to carry that skill-set over to the more obvious arts: painting, writing and music. But everything beyond the pale of the commonly accepted arts is still art.
So stop waiting. You’re the only one stopping you. You didn’t miss the train to creation; you’ve been on it the entire time. I am the conductor trying to wake you from your slumber–because you asked me to do it, when you started reading this.
Get back to the doodle you were doing. Get on with the show you were filming. Get over yourself. Get under yourself. Get to the end before the end gets you.
You’ve got one chance every single day of your life to make a good effort. It happens the moment after you wake up. Your first thought dictates how you will sleep. Your sleep dictates how you will live. Your life dictates how the future will turn out.
Fulfill your potential, by proving the possibilities. Give us the picture to a path pure in brilliance. Compose a song that will teach the generations what it means to feel music.
Nothing is impossible, even though we like to think so.
Stop listening to the naysayers, for they will walk on your grave when you fail.
Stop failing to act. Perform for others if not for yourself, but do not dare spend another day away from your dreams. Remember that conditioning will kick the habit of procrastination.
Remember why you loved to be creative in the first place, when you were young. Release that awestruck quality once more. Remember the joy in knowing you did something original, and why that was important to you.
Turn it over again. Reinvigorate your gauges, and celebrate that the key to creativity has been found. You will see later on that the door was unlocked all the while, but for now, take this lesson as a high warning: you will blink, and you will miss out on your dreams, if you don’t set up a schedule and stick to it.
Write down a list of all you want to do before you die. Write every book or song title–or painting subject. Write the chapter titles, to make it feel more real to you. Write your obituary. Write what your portfolio will look like at ninety-nine. Get it all down, so you don’t forget a thing.
You are on tracks that wind around the mountain, and you don’t know if the bridge is out. Stop waiting to live your life while you still can. Don’t hold your breath for something more, when everybody actually needs less of what they already have.
Every day is an endless stream of distracted consciousness and action. Shove it all aside.
Break the material things. Shatter the baseless doubts.
Don’t deal too long with those who don’t understand your dreams.
You have a job to do. Don’t let the day bury you.
You were sent here to be an artist.
Your chance is now.
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