Good morning and awaken,
Creative.
Today we're going to explore the idea of freedom.
Because it is an idea,
It's not a reality,
If you will.
I start with a quote from James Baldwin.
People can't,
Unhappily,
Invent their mooring posts,
Their loves,
And their friends,
Any more than they can invent their parents.
Life gives these,
And also takes them away.
And the great difficulty is to say yes to life.
This says a lot,
Not just about life,
But about the creative courage to listen or identify the fire that burns within and live by its flame rather than one.
Perhaps those parents we can't invent have given us,
Or the friends,
The culture,
Or the lovers.
It's a great illusion to think at any point in our life we have untethered freedom because freedom can't come in an untethered environment purely because being untethered is,
Quite frankly,
To be dead.
There is no way to become unmoored from the posts of life and still live.
As a creative,
Freedom is the ability to choose.
It is a choice within boundaries.
And as a human,
Your freedom comes in the ability to choose.
And in that very choosing,
You begin to establish those mooring points,
Those foundational strongholds,
And the things that will help be guideposts in your life.
If not choosing them,
Then put there for you to identify.
It's the career path.
It's the relationships.
It's the location.
And as an artist,
It's the tools that speak the spirit you're imparting into the world.
Freedom,
The ability to choose,
Is choosing within boundaries and structures.
This is the beauty of freedom.
Sit for a moment.
Imagine a freedom that's untethered.
It's difficult to do.
Your mind wants to grab hold of something,
Give it form,
Structure.
Again,
That mooring point to hold on to.
Freedom,
Very nature of freedom,
Comes from a space of control.
Now,
Take that freedom.
As an artist,
Take the tools of your trade,
A paintbrush,
Paint pots,
Paper.
Now,
Re-explore the idea of freedom.
Can you see how it's changed?
This exploration of freedom with tools,
And if you will,
Boundaries in place,
Takes on a whole new meaning.
In the first example,
In the first exploration,
Untethered,
There's a bit of freneticism,
A searching for something to grab hold of in this vast expanse of nothingness that is freedom,
That is perceived freedom.
In the second exploration,
With tools of our trade in front of us,
We can see where the structure lies,
The organization of materials,
And then the passion,
The curiosity,
The excitement around exploring the freedom within these set boundaries.
It's a small twist.
It's a gentle nudge to start thinking differently,
To look to your relationships,
Your structures,
What you might consider confinements,
And see them differently.
Perhaps that messy partner isn't debilitating your creative spark,
But rather teaching you a new way to explore.
Maybe that 9 to 5 job isn't taking away the space of your creativity,
But offering you a new vantage point from which to explore it.
Again,
It's a small twist.
It's a gentle nudge to see the things of your life with new light.
Because freedom isn't untethered.
It's given to us as a gift within the structures of our everyday life.
Explore.
Enjoy.
And awaken,
Creative.
This is your life.
