It’s foolish not to learn from your mistake. Learning and expanding and growing is a natural part of life and too many people fail to do so because they’ve built themselves lives that require them to stay the same.
But there are things we know to be true, things about us that don’t change, at least not until they have a chance to run their course.
There are many parts of my self which I never allowed to run their full course, and as a result, I’m left in a constricted state, imaging what might have been or feeling that I’ve betrayed myself in some way.
I knew school wasn’t working for me from a very young age but I was forced to go through with it anyway. There wasn’t much of a choice but something I chose to do was to shut up about my dissatisfactions and keep them to myself, to let them fester rather than find healthy ways to let them out.
The reason for this were various blockages. I didn’t have the confidence or bravery to try and become a full time musician or artist. I had too many aversions to working a job that I hated and I hated every job I saw so I locked myself off from making the money necessary to escape the rat race or have a more “normal life”.
Deep down I knew I wanted to stick to my ideals but I didn’t have faith that 10 years of hunkering down and faking everything in a corporate job would have allowed me to preserve the things I loved about myself.
What I’m only learning now is that if I had kept my cool and learned to be the adult in the room from a young age, it would have gone a lot quicker and been a lot more fun than I had imagined. It’s only the constricted, self-pitying and vindictive version of myself, the victim, that would have lost themselves and became a hollow shell.
To have faith in life and in yourself means that you don’t lose yourself.
And so I chose a different path, one that would force me to live by my ideals…and it was hard as fuck, really for the same reasons I would have lost my passion for life on the other track, a lack of faith in life and in myself.
But the road I chose forced me to face all my demons. While giving up in the safe path leads to a normal life lived by a hollow shell, giving up on the scenic route means death. And so I became a much stronger person for that, even if it took me way to long to learn a lot of the lessons I was learning.
Still I was never brave enough to make myself completely vulnerable. I hid things. I disguised myself online. I spent a lot of time worrying about what MIGHT happen if I said certain things.
And so my road was very bumpy. Very very bumpy, and I fell out of the damn car a few times and smashed my face against the pavement.
Now I sit at a strange place. Between these two worlds, one foot in society and one foot outside, and not really bothered by it, as long as it’s fun and creates more abundance for myself and for others.
But I’m still facing the harsh truths, that we are encouraged to compete and that the world will likely forget me when I’m gone, that sometimes nobody cares about your problems and that more often they will not understand.
None of this bothers me anymore.
I know why I am here and I trust that it all has a meaning and that I am capable of making the most of it.
There are things I feel I need to share that I have ALWAYS felt I needed to share. A LOT has changed but these things have not. The framing has though and so much of what would have come across as an attack before hopefully does not.
A lot of what sounded like angst and frustration before now come across very differently. I have more compassion and I also understand people better. Most importantly I don’t feel like a victim so there is nothing to lose.
If I fail, I fail. That’s it. Goodbye. It was fun. And if I don’t fail, well then life is really just starting!
And so long as there are choices, I’m still in the game, and I haven’t failed anything, and as long as I’m reaching new levels of understanding and sharing, I haven’t failed anything, I’m winning.
But I’m not playing in the shallow end anymore. I’m taking off the safety restraints and whatever happens happens!
This makes me a little but more than that it makes me excited. I feel like I’ve been riding with training wheels my whole life and now I have a chance to go at full speed. Who knows? Maybe I will fly.
——
New music video:
“Art vs. Artist” by I+Everything MV
