Sometimes we feel like we're living in a freezer. An icicle hanging in a cave. Every now and then a drop of water escapes from us, a bit falls down into the great ocean below. And then we watch as it happens all over again.
The worst part is that the whole time, we're screaming inside, trying to force that drop to come out. But the more we scream, the more we force, the less seems to come out. We just sit there staring at the ocean below, longing to join it one day, to melt until we fall in and are totally consumed.
Instead we feel stuck, alone and pathetic.
We have so much to say, so many things on our chest. But they're stuck in a perpetual state of moss-on-the-rock syndrome.
There's that poem we have all set and ready to go for our spouse. What was it again? Oh yeah, "I love you so much. Where would I be without you? You're the most meaningful person in my life." Somehow, those words get stuck in our throats. Sometimes as far down as our guts. And yet they're simmering, maybe even boiling, waiting to explode into the world.
There's that tapestry we've been meaning to weave. The one where we take the first thread, enrolling in a community college course in computers, then take the second, getting a masters degree in computer science. And then begin to weave that tapestry, the one envisioned from the beginning. When all the threads are woven just right, we will finally have the training and experience necessary to make money when we move to Israel. Beautiful.
But somehow, that dream stays stuck in dream mode. Frozen.
We hear those voices, those voices that seem prerecorded, telling us things that sound all too familiar.
"After all this time? Showing love? That's showing weakness. Don't rock the boat."
"You're thirty. So old! Trying to change your life now? Stick the course."
"Dreams? Those are for children and artists. You're no artist."
Most of us mistake those voices for voices of sensibility and intelligence.
But no, we must remember: Those are the voices of a thousand experiences in our past. Voices used by a mean, cynical, silly old man within us who is convinced we could never amount to anything.
That man, he wants us to be him. He wants us to convince ourselves that when we don't listen to the Artist within, when we ignore the Truth, we are simply acting reasonably. Intelligently. Wisely. And every time he succeeds, we give him the keys to our artist's prison cell.
That man: He's not us. He's the icicle.
How do we melt the icicle within? How do we get back into the sea? How do we give the keys back to the Artist?
It's only when we put our lives on pause. Let the voices wash over us. Laugh at the old man until we realize that he and his silly voices are really nothing. Until all that's left is the One voice. The voice of the Artist. The voice of Truth.
That voice, when we let him speak, has the power to melt the Arctic.
When the Artist is free, the voices become nothing. The icicle melts. The cynical old man is once again a silly old fart. And the next thing we know, we're enrolled in Computers 101. We say a soft word to our other half and help her gorgeous Artist poke its head out as well.
The voices and the old man will still be a fact in our lives. Always rushing, always crashing against us, like waves against rocks. It is when we recognize this, when we swim above the current instead of getting sucked under, that we realize the ultimate Truth.
We are the Artist.