Fine Artists and Other Mythical Creatures
To begin, I’d like to share a quote I came across recently that inspired this post and got me thinking. In his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, David Lynch describes the moment that he decided that he wanted to live what he calls “the art life”. He says:
“I liked to paint and I liked to draw. I often thought, wrongly, that when you got to be an adult, you stopped painting and drawing and did something more serious. In the 9th grade, I met a guy named Toby Keeler. As we were talking, he said his father was a painter. I thought maybe he might have been a house painter, but further talking got me around to the fact that he was a fine artist... This conversation changed my life”.
This idea that the older we get, the more serious we are expected to become, is so deeply ingrained in our modern brains that it can often go unnoticed. It's disturbing, really, the degree to which seriousness and a sedate attitude have become synonymous with maturity. Children are meant to be wild. They cry and laugh and sometimes say jarringly honest things. And those things are allowed, provided they grow out of them at the appropriate age. Now that is not to say that the demands of adulthood shouldn’t require growth and change, but I do think that too many aspirations are quashed by the idea that the two cannot coexist.
I want you to close your eyes and think back on an aspiration you had, or have, that at some point became “unattainable”. Not physically unattainable, but unattainable due to your own limiting beliefs or more “serious” expectations. For me, it was becoming a professional ballerina. Up until college, I was determined to find some way to make that happen. I lived and breathed it. My well-meaning parents quickly re-directed my dance program applications toward a more “stable” and “practical” path. (I ended up majoring in philosophy, so I’m not sure their plan worked, but you get the idea).
Now, no matter how unrealistic this dream may seem, it still fills you with feelings of passion and joy. What do you see? Smell? Hear? How do you feel? Now, open your eyes. Is there anything in your life right now that gives you that same feeling? If the answer is no, don’t despair. The point of this exercise is not to mourn missed opportunities, but to encourage us to stop limiting ourselves to the aspirations that seem “acceptable” or immediately attainable. The next step, however, is to find something that at least gives you a taste of that feeling and run toward it, full force. Stop telling yourself that you are too old, or it is too late, or that it is just not status-quo enough.
It can be discouraging to live in a world where a 15-year-old David Lynch genuinely thought that no adult’s “real job” could possibly be a fine artist. But guess what—he grew up to become an acclaimed filmmaker. He took the ideas that so many people viewed as just too weird, refused to let them go, and now lives that “art life” that he had dreamed about. Not all of us have had their childhood dreams manifest into careers, but that doesn’t have to be the goal. The point is to remind yourself, and those around you, that if you are passionate enough, you can build a life that incorporates your dreams. It doesn’t matter if you are 18 or 85. It is possible, and it is worth it.
Now go ahead and make it happen.