Though at first glance what I’m about to say doesn’t seem related to creativity, but I assure you, we will build a bridge soon enough. However, just now, I finished running a little over 8 miles, which, to date, is the furthest I have run in over a decade, and potentially my life. The specifics aren’t important, but what is important is that I was able to break my own previous limits–limits that I, now, intend to keep breaking. Something that would not be possible without the inspiration of seeing others breaking their own.
Let me explain, simultaneously as I was running those 8 plus miles, my mother and step-father were breaking their own limits, both over fifty, both running further than they ever have in their entire lives. My mom, who has just lost over 70 pounds, completed 3 miles in just over 30 minutes, and my step father, who has lost over 30 pounds, ran 4 miles in 40 minutes.
To see them break not only their limits, but what they thought was physically impossible, not only allows me to reassess what is in my own tank, but also what it is that I think is impossible.
This, you see, was the fruit of prior cultivation. I learned something, then applied myself to it:
To fully grow, one must enrich their surrounding garden.
This ‘revelation’, so to speak, took me way too long to recognize. Being a very disciplined person, I chart my work daily, and am very conscious of where my time goes, attempting to constantly be reading, training, or working. For the longest time, this allowed me to naively pedestal my ‘intellect’, proud of myself that it was well earned, and deserved. My ‘gifts’ were mine, and I only assumed others would either see me as an example or not care. For the most part it seemed to be the latter. This was enough to set the blame for lack of recognition at their feet.
But then something happened. I was in Mexico, and someone very close to me said something very bold to me. They said: ‘Why do you know all the things you do, if you don’t use it to help others?’ Immediately my defense mechanisms geared up, deflecting such an interrogative dagger. I forget what I said in response, but I never forgot what they said. For weeks and weeks, and then months, it rattled in my skull, dissecting my ego like an onion,
As far as I can see, I went through three stages: Rejection, Reflection, Reduction.
Rejection being the first, was by far the longest. I told myself that their opinion was but their perception stretched assumingly over my own. (i.e. They don’t know me) Despite this obviously full proof deflection–I’m rubber; you’re glue!–the question stuck and dug in. An echo began: Why do I?
Reflection, as always, was the most brutal of the phases. The problem, for me, is that I am an obsessive personality. Whether good or bad for me, or even just a commonplace habit, an obsession takes over me. The only thing that can interfere, are my other and more personally invested obsessions. So when a question like this, a question designed to cut to the core of one’s values, tangles itself into my consciousness, it uses my obsession against me, spreading and reaching every corner of my manifested ‘self’. We have all reassessed ourselves, whether blatantly looking into a mirror, or morally contemplating what we think is right or wrong. Why do I?
Why do I?
Why DO i?
WHY DO I not use what I know, to HELP
others?
This chain reaction continued to reevaluate everything that I ‘know’, examining the awful angles of ‘why’, constricting and constricting as the serpent of uncertainty does, until there’s nothing left but action.
Reduction, for me, is clarity. Not a refreshing dawn with clear skies and sunrise clarity, but more like a controlled forest floor fire clarity, scorching accumulated leaves, branches and debris. However, the hardest part of this phase is the required confession to move forward. To fully face the phantom, I had to give it what it wanted. I had to admit to myself that they were right. Why DO I know what I know if I don’t intend to use it to help others?
With that out of the way, next came the most important reason to do any of this at all: taking action. Of course, this was months and months later, and the change within was occurring simultaneously as other life experiences applied their own pressure, but the damage was done, and it was time to attempt a response, and in such cases, no matter what you do to respond, it is always growth.
Now, let’s get back on track, and bridge why any of this has anything to do with running 8 miles, or why any of that has anything to do with creativity. It’s as if untangling this will be similar to untangling a knotted consciousness….(nervous smile emoji) forgive me…
It had become blindingly obvious that I was too focused on the growth of my own flower, and in doing so, justified my neglect in what I could do for the garden. What is the garden? A garden is one’s personal eco/support system. Your garden is where you live. Your garden is who you live with. It’s those in the same sun; those in the same soil. It’s the sun and the atmosphere that filters. It is the soil and the decay that feeds it. It was time for me not only to be aware of it and its working, but also to provide my own contributions to the effort of overall growth. In other words: I must enrich my surrounding garden.
I started with my room. I envisioned exactly how I wanted it in my ideal world, then I did what I could with what I could, as close to the skeleton of said ‘ideal’. Then I moved onto adjoining rooms, gradually rejecting, reflecting and reducing everything I came across. What was kept, I organized in the best way I saw fit. Flawed, I’m sure, but I trusted myself, then realized that time was all it took. Of course I was going to put the bookshelves in the wrong place, and, of course, I was going to move them to the wrong place again, but THAT was growth. It wasn’t ‘putting it in the right place.’ It was the ‘patience’ to put it in the right place. This patience is growth. This patience is what carries over. This patience, if patiently applied, will always find the most efficient way to get more sunlight and nutrition to the flowers.
From my room, to the surrounding house, to eventually all those within it. For the sake of containment, my mother and stepfather will represent my garden. For the longest time, a heavy demon on my consciousness was my parents’ health. Many times I had told myself that I would give anything to see my mother in better shape, or just to see her take her physical health seriously. Obviously, with someone like me, I had often stated my opinion, but never in a direct and honest way, always in a roundabout generalized manner, aimed more at not offending than actually persuading. But it was time to keep moving the bookshelf.
We started with mile walks. Then three mile walks. Then three mile walks and a workout. Then mile jogs, and so forth and so forth, all the while studying nutrition, and trying to comprehend the how, what and whys of our bodies’ diets and growth. A garden is full of little gardens full of little gardens full of little gardens…
We developed our knowledge and health together, and in doing so symbiotically taught each other things our personal perspective gave us access to that, alone, we would not have. We grew faster and further than we could have done by ourselves. So, as stated before, watching her and my step-father develop and see over walls they didn’t realize were there, inspired me to shoot my own Lucretian arrows at my own barriers.
Here we are at around mile 5 and half, the subtle pressure of the wind is becoming less subtle, as my brain begins interrogating my consciousness, anxiously checking my internal gauges. What about my feet? My back? Maybe I shouldn’t go the whole 8 miles, and should consider the consequences and toll of this exertion on my thighs and calves, especially when I have potentially such a long week of driving, crammed in the sedan…
Your brain knows all the buttons and levers. But then, I turn the corner, and there’s my step-father, cruising, over half way with his 4 miles, still churning his legs, not panting or showing any of the same alarm signals within myself. Something clicked. All interrogating thoughts became drowned out by one forest floor fire of a phase: Let’s Go!
‘SOOOOOUUUUUU!’ I yell, letting him know, there’s more in our tanks, emptying my lungs simultaneously for a full oxygen dose. ‘LEESSSSGOOO’ I yell, for one final exhale, revigorating my stride, hips leading my feet, heel toe, heel toe.
If he witnesses weakness in my own stride, he will justify it in his. The mantra chants within me, wrestling the pain and uncomfort, forcing it down. I nearly sprint by him, making sure he doesn’t see any sign of exhaustion to reflect my inner alarms. This doesn’t last long, but now my mother is ahead, almost a different person from who she was six months ago; legs still churning–
‘SOOOUUUU!’ I yell with the same intention. ‘LEEESSSGOOO’, I yell, digging deeper and deeper into the reservoir, sprinting again, accepting the mantle and responsibility of not reflecting what we are all feeling.
I keep the blinders on as long as I can–INHALING/EXHALING. INHALING/EXHALING–but once distance has been created, I wind down to a cruise, now turning my attention to completing, completely persuaded that body can tell me what it wants to, but I’m not going to stop…
To do anything at all in this world is hard. To do anything a second time makes said-anything tremendously more fathomable. To do anything with someone can make it much lighter to lift. To do anything for someone, and you can attach another engine to your willpower. To make a dream come true, well, I think nearly everybody (especially those of us over 30), will admit it is impossible, or at the very least, requires a lot of reduction of what ‘dream’ or ‘impossible’ actually means. My obsessive personality refuses to reduce my ‘dream.’ In fact, if anything it pulses and grows.
To reach my full potential, I must use what I know to help others with their own potential, and, therefore, OUR POTENTIAL. Such efforts harmonize and compound into an overall musical experience lifting impossibilities into new perceivable angles of achievability. My dream no longer encompasses the petty landscapes of my own motives and desires, but now shrinks to find its new place amongst OUR new, much larger Dream of the Garden.
Do not create alone. Do art With, Because, and fFor the Garden. There is no you without a garden, but there is
always a garden.
