Play This to Some Artful End
It's not really entirely how it ends.
How it ends, depends on how this plays out. So look sharp. Be alive to the world as it is. Open up. Move on. Move up in whatever it is you intend to do by doing it and doing it well.
What a formula. I love that it sounds so simple yet requires a depth of dedication that most of us fail to deliver.
Can you?
Creation is a full participation sport. Anyone who plays it well does so because they are deeply engaged. It's not a consumer activity. Life doesn't come in a virtualized, shrink-wrapped package that you tear open and get three of the things you desire.
Everything of value costs us something. That price may be monetary, may be sweat and blood, may be the surrender of closely held dreams or beliefs.
The cosmos is a rolling negotiation of what we will pay to become something else. That's why there's a marketplace.
You want that? I'll give it to you if you give me what I want. This is an existential foundation. Ask any atom. It will take or surrender any electron it holds if the price is right, if the pull is strong enough in the right direction. So too any binding site on any molecule.
We live in a soup of osmotic interaction where everything is moving now from here to there without regrets. You, creator, are at the heart of this. The whole of the cosmic dance resolves in you. How are you going to play that?
Here are a handful of details worth your thoughtful consideration:
- Regardless of what the influencers want you to believe, no one owes you a thing. Nature doesn't have entitlements. Everything that exists has something that will eat it and something that it eats. We live in a nature show where everyday we have to provide for ourselves and also be the provisions of others. That's not going to change.
- Taking that as an existential given, what are you going to do about it? Is there something you desire? Something that you need? Something that you dream of? Name it. Declare it will be. Then, decide what you're going to eat.
- Talks cheap but knowledge and effort increase its value. Everything that exists emerges from what we can call its "functional conditions." What conditions will make your dream or desire come true? Learn about what you want. Someone, somewhere has done this or something like this before. You were born in the web of things. Ask questions that lead to insights and answers about how your desires become reality.
- Then do something about it. Imagine a lab that's focused solely on making your dream come true. Literally equip it with what you need to make it happen. Create a space in your mind and in your world in which you can experiment and practice with the art required to become what you desire.
- That will cost you something. Perhaps you'll have to borrow something from someone. Perhaps someone else will share their resources with you. Perhaps there already is a place where this type of thing is explored. Find it. Engage it. Teachers of everything are everywhere. Study with them. Practice on your own. Practice with others. Practice always, the whole way through.
- Then. Fall on your face. We always begin in ignorance. Everyone! Don't judge yourself by the outcome. Don't get stuck on the product. When we say life is a journey, we mean it. Begin at the beginning in the very middle of where you are now and try the new skill. Explore the new effort. Fail.
- Don't let it hurt your feelings when you fail. You will fail, sometimes just a slip-up, sometimes dramatically, perhaps in private, perhaps on national TV. Don't be concerned with what others think. They are not you. They are not doing what you do and they can be petty and they're always judgmental. Ignore them.
- This is your journey. Your risk. Your magic act. You are the one who feels what you do. Navigate this mystery with your own direct experience.
- You are turning yourself into something you've never been before. Get good at it. When you fall, pick yourself up. Take another shot. Fail again. Take another shot. Repeated effort gives you new knowledge with every attempt. That's how you form your artfulness. Take every piece of advice. Try it.
- Over time, weave together a personal package of techniques that you get, that you understand. A personal style. A voice of your own.
- Then sing out! Perform as if you knew what you were doing. Appreciate each moment of the effort all of the way through. By which I mean experience it. Be present in the journey from your ignorance to your mastery.
- Get good at it. Then, get better. That inherently implies more failure. It can happen at any point along the way but so can brilliance. The more brilliant you wish to become, the more failure you will experience. Masters are masters of their own mistakes.
- Most importantly, love what you are doing. Love who you are doing it for. Love it as it comes true. Learn to enjoy the art of becoming who you are.
- As you do, relax. Let go. Learn to play well, Take the time to play through, Take the time to play better. Your very journey is the artful end.