For a long time, I’ve been scared… of everything.
What if no one likes my writing?
What if my ideas are washed up and flat?
What if people think I’m fake for using my non anglicized name?
What if I’m oversharing?
What if it doesn’t work out?
What if it does, and it’s not enough?
I became scared of what I love because I gave it the power to dismantle me. It’s true. I’ve made a pretty hard time for myself, all these years, because I always want to do things well and do things right. I think I became a starving artist out of fear, in the sense that I’ve programmed myself to settle for starvation of the art I so desperately need to create to survive.
But I’ve decided the “everything” I’m scared of is less important to me than the “everything” I want to do. Because art isn’t done well or right, whether it’s forged from sunshine or blood or alcohol, spat out during a fit of rage, or unearthed with tangled roots. I don’t want to spend my life overcompensating for whatever atrocious flaws I think I have, or standards I think I need to exceed in order to do things well and right, when I could be doing things.
So I’m going to write my stories, and use whatever ideas make me excited to sit at the page, and whatever name I want to sign my work with. I’m going to share and create and just do things. That’s it. I just want to do things, as crude or inspired as the outcomes are, despite everything I am and everything I ever want to be, everything I will be.
Maybe it won’t work out.
Maybe it will.
Maybe it won’t be enough.
If that’s the case? I’ll just do more.
Because life isn’t lived well or right. It’s either lived or it’s not.
I’ve decided I want to live.
I think that’s well and right enough.
Commentaires