Saw the time stamp of the last post I shared while in Germany. Over a month since I’ve sat down to share on this medium. I don’t think I’m going to actively share this one on socials and email… but maybe it’'ll be just the right few of you to stumble upon it and hopefully what I’m about to say brings out some value somewhere. Even if just for me.
It has taken so much resolve to get myself to this place of writing this blog post. I feel like my tank for sharing and vulnerability just… emptied. Sometime over the last month, I’ve just grown so tired. So tired of trying to keep up online. So tired of sharing. So tired of making sure all my posts and pictures are good enough for people to like. Tired of counting followers. Counting plays. Counting other people’s likes. Just counting. Watching and counting. My body is tired. I’ve found myself dealing with some health issues that have slowed me down and shown me some things I have been neglecting to take care of. Even as I type this, I fight nausea from looking at this computer screen. My mind, my heart… are so stretched.
In short… my soul is catching up to me.
I have found myself in a moment of deep questioning and searching. And as the majority of my energy, focus, and being have all been dumped into making this album I’m working on, here in the last phase of finishing the album… I’m haunted with the ringing question… Why? Why am I doing this? Why do I care so much about this thing? Why do I need it to succeed so badly? And why am I so afraid that it won’t? Do I believe what I’m about to share with you? These are the questions that stop me mid-breakfast…staring into my eggs. I stand outside of the shower soaking , paralyzed in fear… trapped in these insane unknowns.
“Art goes sour when the ego gets involved. It happens slowly overtime…when we forget the initial joy of loving something for the sake of loving it. When art becomes a means to an identity, or when we use our successes to patch up wounds that success was never meant heal, we lose sight of art’s beauty. When art becomes a competition instead of a nuanced language to be celebrated, we forget the power of our own uniqueness and the specialness hidden in our own voice, as our efforts become aimed at becoming the best instead of becoming our true selves. Then, when we become the best, we begin to see people around us as either threats or servants to our own ego, rather than stories to learn from. We lose the art of living and the art of relationship. We lose the heart and we lose the love we so innocently began the adventure with.”
The truth is… I have suddenly and rapidly found myself struggling deeply in my life. As I have committed to facing the truth about myself and my world, this is another step in the process. There are many layers to me, and why I am the way I am. There’s so much amazing stuff in there, and also so much mess. I am digging deeper and uncovering more layers as to who I am and who I am supposed to be. The recent weeks have not been a joy, but rather bleak, heavy, and humbling. I am not all I thought I was.
But this also means I might be way more.