Monday Morning Motivator! 25, Why I do what I do

There’s a shiny new bike in the kitchen. There’s an easel in the corner of the play space. Rowan is sleeping and when he wakes up he’ll discover these 4th birthday presents. One of them will take him far, miles and miles of adventures on the sidewalks and in the parks. One of them will take him on other adventures–of imagination, of color, shape, and form.

Over the years he will express his freedom and creativity in countless ways, and he will probably always remember the little red bike and the big red easel with the Jack Kerouac roll of paper and the blackboard.

A Short Diversion to get us On Track

When I was in 10th grade I remember expressing the opinion that everyone should be an artist of some sort: drawing, painting, playing music, writing poetry or stories; that something or other was bubbling up inside everyone and This World was eager for all of us to be offering our gifts for everyone else to experience.

Most of my friends thought that this was very impractical. “Who would buy the art?”, they asked. If everyone is an artist then who will buy the art they make?

How will an Artist make a Living?

Of course, that question has been with us forever, usually asked by the parents of artists around the time their children are  deciding what to do after high school, when they are choosing colleges and majors. It was a bit of a shock to me at the time, coming from my classmates. “What the hell”, I thought, “who’s talking about money and making a living? I’m talking about being human”.(That particular dichotomy would come to plague me as the years went by…and that is a story for another day.)

A few years later I saw the film My Dinner with Andre, which opens with a lengthy monologue by Wally Shawn, the playwright and actor most famous perhaps as the incredulous Corsican in The Princess Bride–”Inconceivable!” At one point in the monologue Wally says something like:

When I was ten years old, all I thought about was art and music. Now I’m 36, and all I think about is money.

And that is the crux of something. Life is a mystery. And each of us is yearning to express something of that mystery. Not to explain it or make sense of it, rather just to revel in its beauty and wonder, to ride the rapids of expression and fascination, to fulfill the true role of the artist and astonish: a few perhaps, or many.

And then there is the matter of making a living, that euphemism for making some money to support us in living. And tying the two together.

And that is why I do what I do

To scrape together a living that includes in its making the necessary space for creative expression. To engage in work that helps others to live the healthy balanced life needed to have the time, energy, and desire for creative expression. And to offer my son the freedom and opportunity to wake up every morning with love, energy, and delight, with an open road and an empty canvass, the opportunity and desire to make a work of art, to offer up his gifts, to shine like the star that he is, the star that we all are!

What’s your thing, and what’s the struggle you face in doing it? And don’t forget the Free Art of Spring Cleaning Teleclass! To be recorded for your listening pleasure. Sign up now!

photo by paul giunta