Play-Doh

Imagination,
use your imagination, child.

Looking up at me,
eyes wide open,
curiosity and confusion.

Choosing Play-Doh over the truck.
Three.
Home.
A seed planted.

Hours with Play-Doh—
an ice cream store,
a hot dog stand,
play.

Imagination.
Not knowing,
but knowing.

Redefining intelligence.
To change is to imagine.

Peter Pan.
Non-fiction.

The Myth of Originality

Ideas resurface from the depths or appear out of thin air

It Never Expires

If ideas and creations want to revisit you, let them. Allow them to express themselves. The belief that everything you create must always be unique and different is a myth—a notion you’ve picked up along the way, or perhaps one someone else planted in you. Think of these recurring ideas that resurface from the depths or appear out of thin air as old friends bringing messages—messages they couldn’t share when they first emerged because circumstances didn’t allow them to complete their original work.These ideas are old friends visiting again, seeking to reconnect and spend some intimate time with you. They’re choosing you, hoping you can help them finish their journey so they can move on without needing another ride on the earthly merry-go-round. Sure, things may repeat, but don’t worry about that. Be grateful that this idea, this thought, this old friend has visited you once again. Allow them to express themselves fully. Listen with compassion and love, and be the vehicle that delivers their voice to the world.

Mystical spirits are everywhere. We simply need to see with our ears and hear with our eyes.

There Is No Such Thing as Original

There is no such thing as original. Whatever stories, paintings, ideas, and thoughts come through you, using you as a mechanism to be heard and expressed, simply are. What a privilege it is that the unseen trusts you to help them be seen once again. What an honour it is that they are willing to share the depths of their hearts, emotions, ideas, thoughts, and art with you. Your role is to keep this vehicle—yourself—clean within and without so that when they arrive, you’re free of clutter and ready to host both the unseen and the seen. Because, in truth, there’s no difference. We’re all here together. Sight can be both heard and seen; listening can see and be heard. Allow your senses to live fully. Don’t reduce them to a one-trick pony.

It's Not for You to Decide

Let go of the outcome. When you entered Sychem, you had no time to get attached to the outcome; you only had time to learn how to swim. When you're drowning, the destination doesn't matter—finding air to breathe is all that counts.

Pokhara, Nepal

I realize now that the same mindset and level of detachment I had at Sychem should apply to what I create within the Ever Evolving sphere. As I just read in The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, the receiver of my creations will experience them through their own lens, not mine, meaning their interpretation of my art will differ from my own. It's pointless to worry about how others will receive the letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs I create. Release control—it's not yours to keep.

This detachment has allowed me to share with more ease. Separating my emotional attachment from how my work is received doesn’t strip the emotions from the work itself. It simply frees me to share without the burden of concern over others' reactions because there will always be those who love it, those who hate it, and those who are indifferent. The need I once had—and sometimes still feel—to be loved by all has, at times, held me back from fully sharing my inner world with the outer world.

How Long Has it Been?

Staying small. Thinking small. Caught up in mundane thoughts.

Are you staying in your own shadow? Still don’t want to be seen? Still want to fly under the radar? What would it feel like to live above it?

Is there a connection between the freeze-and-flight response in the search for love and the hesitation in sharing your work? Do both require the same flavour of vulnerability and openness?

Why do I freeze when people see me? When they show genuine love for my work and way of being?

I recoil, uncertain.

Who benefits from staying small? From thinking small? From being caught up in mundane thoughts? What are these mundane thoughts?

Staying in the shadow is tempting; it’s the home of the exiled. But what parts have been exiled? What parts are yearning to rise to the surface, to sip the air of wind, to feel the heat of the sun and the light of the moon?

How long has it been?

It feels like lifetimes.