/if it doesn’t hurt at all

An artist’s journey is a dichotomous ballet of being a creator and feeling like an A-grade impostor. The highs are so high that it sends you reeling. And the pull of the impostor syndrome drags you to the dark depths of a bottomless pit. There are days when you can weave complex, kaleidoscopic works of art and then there are days when organizing your mind is a task, and stringing words together to say a simple thing is like digging a well with a needle.

It hurts. The emotions go nuclear. And before you know it, you are caught in the cobwebs of existentialism that you are all too capable of weaving. Do I really know what I am doing? Do I actually like what I am doing? Do I love what I am doing? I do, right? But if I do, then why does it seem so difficult at times? I have been doing it since I could remember breathing then why does it feel this way? And I know that want to do it and I will want to do it. But why is there this interior static?

Well, because the truth is, if it doesn’t hurt at all, then it doesn’t mean a thing. And you and I both know, our soul to our art is like sunflowers to the sun. In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency. So, we must carry on—doing it, even when you don’t feel like doing it; especially, when you don’t feel like doing it. Maybe that’s what I am doing now. Maybe that’s what I was doing on the Minnewater Bridge on a clear summer evening.