You are what you have chosen today, not what you have chosen before. Wayne Dyer introduced me to this concept years ago, and I still come back to it. I struggle sometimes with letting go of who I was before, to become what I am meant to be. It's all about letting go of attachments, some say. I would agree with that. Attachments have a way of dragging you down, holding you back. It was true when I learned to paint, it was true when I played music, and it was especially true whenever I've made attempts to write.
-My Painting teacher made me get beyond pretty little Amish paintings and experience the freedom of abstract expression. The only painting he ever really liked enough of mine to keep was a painting of garbage that was lying on the floor, painted with house paint on cardboard, in Green, Orange and Black. (He made me wipe down the Amish painting.) You'd have to see both to really understand. Trust me. The Amish painting was BAD.
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In music, it was getting beyond three chords and a rhyme, and going for something that mattered to me, instead of trying to please someone else. There was a breakthrough when I went beyond my comfort zone and picked music that just felt right for me, not because I felt I could sing it JUST LIKE THE RECORD. I recorded some nice stuff, I think, and I stretched myself when I did it, to make the song my own.
-Writing is the ongoing thing. I'm still learning. But I know for sure I can rely on advice Stephen
King gave in his book "On Writing." It's hard to kill your babies. When you write something you certainly have an attachment to it...and it is HARD to delete pages, paragraphs, sentences....You have to just walk away from it and pick it up three months from now, and then, only then do you see the blemishes, the problems, the STUFF THAT NEEDS TAKEN OUT. And then you re-write.
- It occurs to me that I am the sum of my experiences and to a degree a product of the people around me. Perhaps, a re-invention of self is simply a reshuffling of aspects of that. Yes, I like that. It's not like getting rid of your "old"self at all. Just different choices. Different intent.
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Getting rid of attachments seems harsh, but acknowledging them as attachments, and letting them go back into the deck for a reshuffle sounds nicer. Or am I really trying to justify my attachment to attachments? Hmmm.
1 comment:
One of my favorite movies is "Crimes and Misdemeanors."
And one of my favorite quotes and philosophies comes from that same film:
"We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more."
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