I lie in the living room, a song in my head. My guitar sits across the room, silently resonating a song from long ago. It yearns for something new. It beckons me to come and create something more than I can, at present. I stare at it with loving disdain, unmoving and unmoved.

Yes, yes, it often seems like the hardest thing to do is that which we know we ought to do but which requires effort: our labors of love so to speak. Due diligence suggests we apply some elbow grease and put our backs into the matter at hand. Conventional wisdom says nothing about waiting for the ‘perfect time’, however. 

It comes to pass that we reach a point where we realize we need more, oh so much more, to sustain our passion, enhance our vision, nurture our idealism, and facilitate our expression. At this point, we begin to wrestle with the contention that it’s not enough for us to rest on our hollow laurels or innate talents. And so with reluctance, we knowingly resign ourselves to the reality that we need to transform ourselves in order to thrive. Yet, agreeing in principle is one thing … doing is another.

Going Down By The Grapevine

All too often we are given a wondrous taste of wine. We drink and relish in the lavish lushness of the moment. We swallow and feel the tingling shock-wave blasting through every twitching fiber of our existence. And for one second, we feel alive and harbor both an omnipresence and omnipotence of spirit.

And yet, our frugality of energy and will sets in. Complacency of mind and body manifests; a spiritual ‘rigor mortis’ creeps in as we allow many a grape to die on the vine.

Why are we so damn self-injurious? Is it the stone coldness of a sobering reality that does us in … or the childish playfulness of our restless souls that distracts us from the labor involved? What is it that makes it so hard to get up off our asses and commit?

Damning The Excuses

Mainstream thinking is no help. We are told that “idle hands make the devil’s work”. We are warned against ‘sloth’ … but in the name of consumerism and progress we are offered ‘convenience’; creature comforts for creatures of habit – mundane monsters of routine and mediocrity.

Time is also our enemy. It’s a two-tongue serpent that spits ‘Doublespeak’: “Hurry up! You have time.” Time is not on our side, and we never realize until it’s much too late and time has run out, leaving us as jilted corpses.

It’s not enough to simply want ‘change’ in our lives. We have to become inner rebels and refuse to accept any limitations of external or internal origin. We need to toil, sweat, occupy our moments in time and space and make something of ourselves. Mind you, I’m not referring to what others expect us to be, but what we expect ourselves to be. The potential to be ‘more than what we are’ rests within our souls, waiting to be tapped.

Finding The Impetus of Impediment

As for me, it always seems that the nature of my artistic endeavors, be they writing, music or thought, exist in a realm where pleasure meets pain. I possess a pervasive self-deluding passion to transmongrify the dark into light and back again … yet, I miss the viscous circles I create.

For example, I sing the Blues and write of inner contrasts to set myself free of a self-induced coma of justified thinking, “there is no Yin without Yang”. I procrastinate and call myself bohemian. I look in the mirror only to laugh at myself. Forever, seeking an impetus of impediment. I remove of my shoes to step on my own toes.

Indeed, I’ve become my own worst enemy and it’s high time I stop victimizing myself solely in the name of habit. Today, I take a stand against my own complacency. Today, I break free of myself. Today, I step out of my own shadow and vow to work, not merely on my crafts, but on myself. Today,  I welcome the occupation that ‘tonight’ and ‘tomorrow’ may bring: change within and freedom for the creative potential the lies within me.

How about you?

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