I want it to be good

and all the ways I stop myself from creating

Just past the southern tip of the island is this truck. It is no longer good for driving, but it is beautiful in its decay.

I want to make beautiful art, but in the dungeon of that desire is the fear that I can’t or it won’t be…beautiful. 

In fact, sometimes I want it to be so good that it becomes nothing at all — just a feather of inspiration drifting in a lazy arc toward the ground, hoping I’ll snatch it out of the air, hold it to my ear, and listen to the messages it’s collected on the wind. But when Good, or sweet mother help us, Great, gets involved, I watch that feather drop to the earth, get trampled on twice and ground into the mud. 

Occasionally, I’ll try to fish it out and make something of the message, but usually, by that point, it’s lost its animation. Feathers are meant for flying, after all.

It is the long labor of my life, learning how not to staunch the flow that wants to run though me, but that seductive voice of good, right, success echoes, sometimes it has a bullhorn.

What it’s really saying is Safe. 

Safe from too much. 

Safe from not worthy.

Safe from bothering people. 

Safe from failure. 

As though we could be. 

As though we’re not already.

A fundamental motivation for writing this particular publication is to practice overflowing what wants to move through me. It’s meant to be a gift. But I’ve stopped myself from scribing many times (even before I began publishing, especially and most obviously then) because I worried about the practicality of it. 

That sweet, insidious voice trying to protect me says: Once a week is plenty. People don’t need more to read. People don’t need another email. You’re going to drive them all away. Also, what if it all sucks? That’d be really embarrassing. 

I have great compassion for the part that wants so desperately to keep me safe. 

But when I listen to that voice, what I am also saying — to Love, to the Muse, to the animating force of life itself — is, Mmmm, no thanks. Think I’ll pass. ‘Preciate the thought, but no more gifts. I have all I can handle right here. Gotta modulate the input so that it’s not too much. 

Too much for who?

How could something gifted to me, through me, be too much? 

And yet, my big ole brain turns and hisses, Because, STRATEGY! — not that I know much about that, but it sounds nice. It sounds safe. Strategy (that I don’t really have nor understand) will keep us ALL safe. It’ll give us ALL exactly what we want. 

Ha!

Ha, ha!

Ha, ha, ha!

Making art with an end game in mind never works out well. 

So, while I’ve created this container that is Stories from Stillness with an about page that has easy-to-understand bullet points outlining the exact exchange¹, being beholden to that box strangles the creativity that wants to move through this space. 

Don’t get me wrong, structure is fabulous. We’ve all got skeletons; it’d be a mess if we didn’t. And I love the cadence and consistency of writing Love, Sunday. But there has to be room. Room for the magic, room for experimentation, room for whatever wants to come through to come through. 

It won’t be for everyone. 

It’ll be for someone, though. 

And the real kick in the chin is I’m the only one placing limits. Nobody is policing this platform; I’m not even sure what kind of algorithm is at play, but it’s nothing as maleficent as a *cough* advertiser-supported platform, and yet it feels terrifying to step beyond the bounds of what seems appropriate. 

How much would we create if we didn’t question the spark of the small quiet voice that says, Do this, make this, try this…please?

It’s the please that gets me, like a child asking to play. The call is not always so meek, but neither are children. Sometimes, it demands, it yells, it throws a tantrum in the center aisle of Costco on a Sunday. But mostly, it speaks softly; it whispers. Send it away enough, and it’ll stop insisting. It won’t ever go away completely, but it will fade. 

And who wants the dance with the divine to fade? Not me! I’ve never heard an artist or a writer or a musician or anyone creating anything born from beauty and love say, Man, really wish I hadn’t made that. 

Have you?

Creating from love is not a regrettable act. 

I love sharing this because, as I do, it all sounds quite ridiculous and obvious. Really, terror? Really, danger? Really?

Yes. Really. 

And also, that voice who questions is not who gets to decide here.

Stories from Stillness is named so because, in its essence, that is what I am sharing — stories, from Stillness. That other voice is a freight train without brakes running over a broken track. 

The other voice doesn’t make things; it stops them from being made. 

That other voice convolutes the message and tries to make a thing Good instead of simply making a good thing. 

The other voice doesn’t know that the good is in the making. The great is in the creating. 

But Love knows. Oh baby, does Love know.

The rest is out of our hands.

I find quite a bit of relief in that.

So my contemplation for your perusal is this: Where in your life is the voice trying to keep you safe bullying the voice that’s inviting you to create?

1. It’s a rough outline that, as you can probably tell from this letter, will evolve and change.