Enthusiasm, Is That You?

I've certainly been an enthusiastic consumer of many artistic forms in my time, but so what? That's easy; ideas beget ideas. Do you want the secret to a good life? Self-examine your heart and your ways, and learn what turns your mind on. Then, in that mind, sow some lonesome corner so many flowers bloom.

I have gone through phases of false promise in regard to creating art. I could eliminate some occurrences that would fit some people's technical definitions (The Real Inspector Hound), and I would be left with a series of haphazard disappointments and frustrations (losing song lyrics and at least one entire short story at different points). These frustrations may be symptomatic of a latent capacity for one or more art forms; or they may be nothing. Maybe I am pawing at the glass and I will turn around to sleep in the wood chips now.

More mysterious is what triggers such latent desire to create. There have been two occasions this year that have left me feeling ready, and they have come during times that I can not explain by any conventional means. Perhaps their triggers are not explained by my external life, or my internal life, but by happenstance to encounter their mediums with time to explore and a little luck to bolster confidence. Yes, confidence is often my undoing. I would sooner call it "sobriety"; that I try to control my ego and be objective, but the difference between myself and most others that make music or write literature is that they ultimately have a surplus of confidence in their abilities to do something worthwhile, while I do not.

And to end with something that I think most people would think is a total lie: I have little desire for others to experience what I create. What I want more than anything is to be able to admire something I created for myself, knowing that it was born in my mind alone and the result of my witness to the world in its becoming. And if this is a satisfaction born out of loneliness or isolation, then so be it, but I will go on at peace with an idea, which is enough for me.