FEAR. Revisited (or Revised?)

(Re: FEAR.)

So I'm sitting her thinking about the nature of the universe like I always have...
And I'm thinking more and more as I get older that I really didn't have the slightest understanding about the true nature of things in my youth. I know...none of us do. But I remember the points in my life when I thought I did. They always centered around my understanding of my lack of understanding. I laugh now when I think of the little aches and pains from my teens and twenties that used to make me say things like, "I'm so old" or "I feel old." I laugh now as I struggle to hold a cup of coffee in my arthritic hand after a couple of weeks of painting and the prior construction work.
But more than just that stuff, now I'm thinking about the bigger picture in a whole different way. It makes me feel like such a dumbass I can't even tell you. The things I have done and not done because of my lack of understanding. The things I have spent my life giving a shit about are often completely ridiculous and my priorities have often been so completely screwed up that I don't know how anything could have been making sense to me. And now I am stuck living with the consequences of those years. And there are days when that just crushes me.
But...

Now there are days when in stead of crushing me...it all kinda makes sense and I am more relaxed than ... well, more than I can remember feeling in a long time.
Like yesterday, for example, while I was upstairs painting I got into such a clear minded Zen place I realized I was actually hearing the words to all of the songs on the radio! Which is good because we really do need to talk sometime soon about the ridiculousness currently going on adding to the need for best friends and Zen moments. Not gonna tell ya here first though. (I hear that whole Eddie Izzard routine in my head every time I use one of those ‘ough’ words. :o)
I’m beginning to realize that 2 of the most important lessons in life are A. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And 2. Don’t give a shit what other people think.
For example, I was talking to my sister Saturday (when you were in the shower) and I was talking about making part of my living as a potter and doing like half a dozen craft shows a year and she started saying all the bullshit things I used to say and I started laughing at what a joke it was. And then I went off about what bullshit they fed us in grad school when they said to a class of like 30 something fine arts majors that only 2 of us were going to make a career of it so what were the other 28 doing there? And I think being told stuff like that so often is why only 2 stick with it. Because that’s the key...it’s not that the other 28 try and don’t make it. It’s that they just go on and do something else. The allure of the $50,000 a year paycheck a computer programmer brings home certainly got me for a few years there! I hate Excuses. And I think a lot of the people saying those things have never had to go out and get a real job so how the hell would they know. I’ve done lots of different jobs and none of them come as easily to me as throwing pots. Or to put it another way...making a living as a potter is easy compared to having to do it ‘in the real world’

So to bring both conversational threads together...

We all have the ‘poser’ syndrome when it comes to being found out as a fraud in our career whether it’s a tv director or a computer programmer or a school teacher or an office setup technician or a potter or even as an art student. We all take our jobs and especially our Art very personally so it’s difficult to hear criticism of the work because it’s criticism of our person. Why do we give a shit? I mean that in all seriousness. Is life about our work or about our friends and family and being happy?
So how I ever could have said something like, “It’s hard to put my pottery out there at craft shows and have people not like it (and have to pack it all up again at the end)”
Ok...first of all...DUH...stop taking the crappy pots that never sell to the shows...make more of the things that do sell...play to the audience. I’m not doing craft shows to make high art, I’m doing them to make money.
Rock with me...
Give the
People
What they
Want!
And secondly, who the fuck cares what the people at craft shows that don’t buy my pots think? It’s the one thing in my entire life that I honestly know I’m great at. Like the title of one of my photoblog sites used to say, “Jack of all trades, master of one”
I’m sure the rust would come off quickly.

Ok...well...this got really long. I’m not even going to read it over to see if it makes any sense because I have painting that needs to be done before it gets too hot to deal.
I’m going to try your cell but unfortunately I think you’re on a plane.