I am a failure
Let’s talk about what it feels like to fail. Every day I look at what I have done and I see the flaws. I look at what I’m doing right now and I struggle to see how it’s going to succeed. I look at what I want to do — that huge, epic, wonderful, and vast thing that I wish upon a star to shape with my own clumsy and weak hands — and my heart sinks.
For thirty plus years (I’m probably older than you think), I have had visions of thrilling worlds, creatures, mechanisms, and moments. I have also aspired to many endeavors and to fulfill many roles. Often they are simple to understand, such as rockstar, filmmaker, or space explorer. Much of the time, however, my mind explodes with plans and concepts too chaotic to nail down, be that a particular role, a clearly defined project, or an established model of how things should be done.
Decades of inspiration and hard work are in my wake and none of it seems to have quite worked out, much less lived up to my expectations. It has all fallen flat with a disappointing silence. I stand quiet and alone in the middle of a huge mess of broken things for as far as the eye can see. What’s worse is I have placed this disastrous body of work before others. My dignity is saved only by the hope that their expectations of me are significantly less than my own and that nobody ever finds out what it was all supposed to be.
I am a dreamer
Let’s talk about what it feels like to dream. Every day and every night I experience flashes of inspiration. Many are unexpected and many are brought on by surrounding myself with great works of industrious creativity. As soon as I witness something amazing, I am set on fire from within and must immediately try to do something amazing, too.
Nature inspires me. This universe is both beautiful and terrifying. I want to understand it. I want to experience it. I want to share the awe that I have so that others can feel that with me.
People inspire me, especially those who work hard every day in the face of overwhelming odds. Really, any ambitious or worthwhile, beautiful idea is overwhelming when you look at it closely and realize what it takes to achieve.
Let us continue
Perhaps if I continue to dream and allow myself to continue to fail, one day I may just slip up and fail at failure. Or perhaps the point is not to succeed but to dream and to use my failures — the broken things in my hands — to share those dreams with you so that you may in turn be inspired, despite any of your own failures, to also dream.
I am a dreamer and I continue to fail to fulfill those dreams, but what I never fail to do is continue to dream. For you and for me I continue to dream.
Hi Drew, I don’t use FB much anymore but got on to give something away and was intrigued with your post.
Being creative takes so much bravery and being willing to share your turmoil and thoughts proves that you have it.
Over the last few years I’ve been trying to recapture my artistic self, after fearing that part of me might have been dead from neglect. I’m happy to say it only needed alittle space and time to show me I still had it. I understand the struggles you are going through, I feel them too, as I look down at the incomplete paintings leaning against the studio walls, that I didn’t know how to illustrate a tough section and put aside to follow and new hopeful inspriration.
Conversely, I can also look upwards at the art I created that hang on the walls here and in a couple of homes.
It’s funny, I never thought of this before writing, that the direction I choose to look, either up or down, proud vs. discouraged also signifies how I feel about my efforts, abilities and self as an artist.
When we are brave enough to try, to create something where there was nothing, something that only exists in our imaginations and expressed through our level of talent and skill, that in of itself needs to be recognized and appreciated. It takes a brave person to risk hurting their own pride and sense of self to even try. And an even braver one willing to open themselves up the judgment of others.
This is a motto I came up with a few years ago that I often remind myself of when fear is blocking me from trying.
“Giving myself the freedom to fail opens the door to creativity”.
Continue being brave for that is really the accomplishment.