Cold, freezing winter night and a hot, steamy dinner – kind of stuff that dreams are made of. Add compliments for the chef and it is closure – a perfect ending to a perfect story.
“It was very nice”, I hold my gratitude high and the respect for the maker even higher. Her smile is my seal of approval and the sparking eyes ensue inspiration. But what if it wasn’t nice?
I never quite understood the concept of liking or disliking your own work, and holding appraisals and critiques to such extraordinary grandeur. I must have written over a thousand songs by now, penned down poetry as an almost daily journalling act, kept a diary of ideas and random brain gibberish for 15 years now, and never have I ever not liked or disliked anything that happened through me. It does’t infer that every word, note or letter is a masterpiece, but for me, I absolutely love and respect anything that comes through me.
It is a privilege, an honour, a blessing to be able to do what your soul desires. Even if it ends up cringe, desperate, pretentious or blatantly – rubbish, never have I ever disgraced attempts or trials. That is what one could call a sin.
Of course, there is the ever looming feedback of ‘it can be better’; of course, you have to give in; of course, you have to spend two and a half years writing and producing the same song over and over and over again; of course, it is a nightmare being an artist; and of course, it is ridiculous, defies gravity, logic and all bounds of human consideration, convention – but why do we need to statistically categorise attempts as nice and not nice, hold onto an elaborate and excruciating emotional obligation, and turn what little time we have being alive into a catastrophe, just because “people say so”.
I have had my share of romantic perfectionist tendencies, and I have wasted a lot of time in bare rhetorics, but “wasted”, I quote. How do we define ‘waste’?
As a noun, it simply refers to the ‘unwanted-ness’ of something. “Want”, I declare is yet another false human mishap – one of the cardinal sins – desire. And how can a structure be legitimate when it is actually based on a false misinterpretation of a fundamental natural phenomenon.
To help seek an understanding, let me ask my master – nature. How does nature apprehend ‘waste’?
Like death, it is our frugal, selective but a needed urgency to assign meaning to certain events and associations – for the survival of our species. It is anthropological – humans are social animals, and for a society to function appropriately – rules, regulations, taboos, biases, and what-not are innate and inherent, and so is their fabrication.
Look at an individual soul – a cockroach – the symbol of filth, decline and waste; in reality, is as important to the system as is a honey bee, or a tree, or a bird, or a river – material. From the perspective of a fungi, it is reincarnation – a deceased tree in yet another form – same molecules, atoms and bonds – material, just a different structure.
We get so pin headed about opinions on what is good or what is bad, which is not inherently wrong; in fact, a healthy moral structure is critical for the actualisation of an individual and the community. But my concern is with the dire emotional obligation that follows, and our need to give up and let it leech us out of trying, failing and growth.
Success is a failure, and to fail is to succeed, these ideas of grand juxtaposition are subjectivity relevant according to the context – we could call it a mindset.
Looking at your art and work just in a different way shall separate you from yourself, it separates the art and the artist. This may sound silly, but at the end of the day, as a human being, our purpose is to get out of our own way and let a higher power guide us. I may sound mystical and I wouldn’t hold you accountable for misreading my language, but it is pure logic.
Anger, anxiety, lies, defences, explanations, projections, and a whole plethora of fundamental issues arise only because we stand in our way and block an objective, grander view by a pseudo subjective understanding. Don’t get me wrong here, a lot of my friends label me as an orthodox, radical rationalist, but if only they observed me from a distance, my reactions would prove it otherwise.
Emotions and feelings are important. You should feel sad if something doesn’t work, and you should rejoice when you have a breakthrough, but letting the emotions and feelings suck us deep into an abyss is merely a fallacy to being human, never mind wrong, or unhealthy, or dysfunctional… or ‘i-can-understand’-able.
Sadness, joy, anger, nervousness – every emotions has a reason, and the reason is to guide us into the right direction. We could elaborate on this in some other essay, but why hold someone’s opinion to such a grandeur that you contemplate quitting the very thing you love.
It is not about the dish, not about the song, or the project, or art, or product, or success, or failure, or disasters, breakthroughs, impressions, or numbers, no. It is about staying true to your process, to being in the moment, existing just for the sake of it.
It is about making, creating, building, doing, running, pausing, stopping, restarting, rescheduling, reiterating, reinforcing – it is about the act, about expression, about getting out of your way, out of your head – it is about growth, about your own unique individuality, it is about giving, and receiving. It is never about judgement, or labels, or tags, or affirmations, or critiques, or objections, or deliverance.
Charity is true when it begins at home, and who lives in your home – before you think about your friends, family or possessions, you are the first person in your home. Tend to yourself, take care of yourself, stay focussed on what you’re working towards, what you’re building, stay grounded, in the moment and don’t let anyone or anything dictate how you must feel about your failures, loss or tragedies, and if they do – question yourself, not the system, or them.
Dig deep into your soul and look for answers because not just as an artist, but as a human being, this is exactly your purpose. Mediums evolve, they always have. And now tend to other beings.
It is only when I fall truly in love with myself, not the romantic or hyper-glamorised niche of self-help and self-love, but an empathetic, open, forgiving, strict, a healthy functional relationship with yourself, that I could love someone unconditionaly.
Next time someone disobeys your opinion or attempts, be empathetic and try to understand where they come from, mentally, emotionally, and even when it is excruciatingly harsh, be sure you show kindness first to yourself, and then to whatever is out there. Judgement becomes obsolete.
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