Carry On

Today I am reflecting back on my experience, not just over the past two months, but since I made the choice to place my strictly pragmatic tendencies aside to create and engage with something utterly quixotic. Initially I was burdened with questions; is this sensible? Why do I feel motivated to engage with this so closely? What does it mean for me that I am so interested in it? Will engaging with these feelings be healthy and functional? 

Those questions eventually found profound response and rationale, as I have since been able to concretely witness how my work has made meaning for others, including for the person who unknowingly initiated it.
But now, past those feelings of doubtful competence, I am faced with other realities with which to grapple quietly.

How can I own this work that I have done while honoring the reality that I do not own the art that prompted it? Do I deserve to feel proud, or should I find myself merely indebted to the artist indefinitely?

I suppose I feel some miniscule glimmer of the sense Wally feels about his hit single. It has taken on a life all its own-it has become remote from him, although he was its progenitor.Yesterday he spoke at the annual Wired conference on this exact matter; that some things, when generated or placed within 'the grid', take on their own life-like a bird falling from the nest and floating on air currents upward past its origin.

 Just recently have I been tasked with openly recognizing my part in the story-that in fact my hand has written some of this narrative-one which I never imagined I would be given the chance to interact with. In doing so, I find myself feeling like a fraud-as though I have nothing to be proud of....this is not my creation, it is merely an exaltation of someone else's great and brilliant works. I sometimes feel I am a hollow vehicle for lauding the creativity and beauty of someone outside me. It probably sounds asinine from the outside looking in. I bet as people read this they'll scoff or raise brow in surprise and say to the screen "are you kidding me?" Or perhaps they'll agreed that I am wasting my time or that I need to 'get over myself.' Trust me, I have wondered those same things. No.....not kidding. I really do question it...fairly often. Hello "Smoke & Mirrors" and "Dig Your Own Hole." 

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 On the important flip-side I am gracious and thankful to interface with this world. I have met and become connected with wonderful, witty and glowing people. I have been challenged and made mistakes and had to repair them. I have become a support in the system which seemed but a distant and lovely world far beyond my straining reach. I dig that, as I would say in everyday life. I am happy to be a cog in the machine, even when it grinds gears or needs a tune-up from time-to-time.

I suppose I am sitting here justifying why I bother-which is silly. I have plenty of reasons, among those reasons are the beautiful people that have come into my orbit as a result. I ought to never take that for granted. I do so love other people, I have committed my career-life to them, after all.

I started writing this before I had my most recent exchange with...shall we call them my "muse?" I was in a different headspace at the start of this post than at the end. I was looking backward and missing what had to be left behind for now. Today I am looking forward, I am fixed on the strange and wonderful gift of this path, this experience, this fundamental shift in my definition of 'who I am' and 'what I do." I am thankful and thrilled to continue watching it unfold, and to someday reflect on it in my final hours in its entirety, alongside all the highest watermarks of my lifetime. What a lovely story it has turned out to be-with the most genuine and beautiful souls all throughout. That is truly a gift I promise never to squander.

Always looking and leaning forward.

(oh and because I realize I need to own my 'work,' here I am...)


--P


c. Paige 2012

Credit & thanks Audra Napolitano for the image!