Sunday Reflections, 2.25.24 - Part 5 of 5

…I have, in my corner, a loving girlfriend, a loving family, and a core group of people who have consistently and valiantly defended my work and invested in its ongoing production.  I work with the best art consultant (and business coach) that money can buy.  My weekdays begin early, playing around in boats with young people on the water, to try to make their experience slightly better than it might be otherwise if I wasn’t there.  The team, the program, the values I could not believe in more strongly, and I look forward to seeing where it leads over the next several years of the program, as well as this impending spring, getting to watch our athletes amaze themselves with what they are capable of.  Maybe I can get in on some of that magic, too, old and differently motivated as I am, just by hanging in there and continuing to invest time into the pursuit.

This Sunday morning, writing this piece, I’ve retreated inside, the wind knocking things about on the porch, the dog asleep on hit mat, pooped from chasing the ball over and over as I typed.  My hands have warmed back up, the house heated by the A/C fighting the cold outside.  Soon the day will advance, onto less reflective concerns, caught up in the moments of laundry folding, dishwashing, dog-walking, meal preparation, maybe a movie, bed, and waking up early to another dark and cold morning of practice.  I write these pieces to remind myself that what I’m up to, what I’m into, I chose this.  I’m getting what I asked for, the challenge of pursuing fairly impossible things, of doing some things I don’t really know anyone else is trying to balance, not simultaneously anyways.  To think of it as a balance, even, is less fruitful for me than to think of this as a mutually beneficial and ongoing learning experiment.  Capability begets more capability.  The only way I know how to feel even remotely at peace is to try pretty hard, every day.  To do this, I need to pay attention to what is going on right now, and to practice feeling grateful for what I have going on, and for the wonderful people around me.

Maybe there was a point I was trying to make, but if I’m honest, this piece and others like it I write and share are more about expression, the letting go of the thought, the feeling, than about narrative or advice-giving.  If you can find something in these messages that helps you, gosh, that would be great.  Mostly, though, this is for me, just like my art.  I paint not for the attention, or the pageantry, or even because I feel like I “have to”, I paint because I want to!  I wake up and row because it’s what I want to do.  Some things just feel so right, so clear, especially when you are in them, that you don’t need a good reason to do them.  I don’t need to make painting or rowing about some larger pursuit or life lesson, especially when they are going well… revelry is more the feeling, then.  Narratives, stories, wisdoms (maybe!) Come in handy when things aren’t going so well.  I crave the meaning, the long-term thinking, when things get so hard it’s easy to forget why I am here, what I am doing, when there is the strong and present temptation to abandon my way of being, to abandon myself, to retreat, to impose limitations of the imagination.

One of the art opportunities I have applied to formerly stated as their mission to facilitate the creation of “enduring works of the imagination”.  I always liked that phrasing.  On this windy day in February, from the relative comfort of my kitchen countertop, typing away on this laptop, I can trust that what I’m up to might just be a long-term path towards such enduring work, or it might not.  I accept that I might try as hard as I possibly can, and I might not make it.  The business could fail, the art could struggle to achieve what I had in mind, the boat might not go as fast as I’d like it to.

I would much rather keep trying, than to give up, which is the only decision I can really control.  The results of my efforts aren’t up to me, only the ongoing production of some kind of outcomes as long as I stay in it, keep after it.  Even right now, I barely believe what I’m selling here!  I’m not writing this after the fact, after my work has achieved commercial success and fame, after I’ve found my way to rowing experiences to put that passion at peace again, and speaking as someone saying “I’ve done it, you can too”.  Not at all.  I haven’t done even close to what I have in mind.  This is a message from the darker parts of the path, from the place where it’s been hard so far, and it appears as if things will not get any easier, for potentially a very, very long time.  I don’t have a message of convenience to share, I don’t have inspirational words.  I recognize that what I’m trying to do, it might be so hard that I won’t be able to hack it, because I haven’t seen anyone else actually do it, nor have I read about anyone else doing it in this day and age.  It appears… impossible.

This is the kind of challenge I like.  My attention is maximally engaged by stuff like this.  I get to throw myself into the reality of living, surviving, creating something new, breaking new ground, exploring new territory, and I get to document what happens along the way.  Often words of inspiration come from pulpits manufactured after the fact.  In this day and age, I see so many different (but really, all the same) tech-derivative social-media-guru-platformed millionaires being interviewed about their (financial!) “Success”, their narratives so wrapped up in their statistically anomalistic egomaniacal happenstances, back-rationalizing their own fortunes in the vain attempt to generate pathways that “anyone” can follow to have the things they have now.  You’re getting garbage advice if you take these types at all seriously, because they aren’t engaged with the mathematical realities and the exceptionally idiosyncratic nature of their own lives.  They’re selling you something: the same exact conventional soundbite narrative that this will be: 1. Easy 2. Quick 3. At a price of $…99!  Imagine if they told the unfeasible truth!  That pursuing your own path will be: 1. Excessively, impossibly hard 2. Extremely long and arduous and 3. Absolutely free?  Ha!  What a terrible model for a business!  How do I sell a product that’s unpleasant, not convenient, and free?  I mean… to profit off such a product is impossible, unless I’m doing something that doesn’t involve profiting off of my audience.  I would have to be offering something of value, maybe a lesson, and I’d be (by definition) giving it away, not selling it at all.

So, while all the world of podcasts, social media, hell even LinkedIn these days, cluttered with selfies, with someone’s image and narratives over and above their work, may be appealing and offer dopamine-drenched quick ease and relatively cheap (but not free!) thirst-quenching, I hope that you are able to find other, more useful ways of directing your attention.  What I’m offering, what I’m selling (aside from the art itself!) Is for free, and it is not designed for your comfort.  If I don’t make it to the other side, if my art career goes nowhere, well, you’ll know about it!  I risk the embarrassment of failure, in sharing these comings and goings of my career.  I’m tempted, however, to keep going, because it opens the possibility of something happening which I haven’t accounted for or imagined, which seems very, very far away:

If you’re reading these emails next year (or in five years?) how hilarious would it be, if I’m able to bring the good news: “I pulled it off”?!

Cheers,

David