A long December

Another day, another song that has such a meaning and profoundness to my head and thoughts. Counting Crows has been a long time favorite of mine for a very long time. This song, ended up on my “ho ho ho” play list – the play list I’m making for our family outing tomorrow. I’ve been working on this playlist for a bit.

The thought came up in conversations the other day, where in another life I would have been a DJ. Music has always been my art form. I’ve had alot of conversations this year, about Artists and Facilitators. Its kinda one of my running theory/beliefs that there are parts of the mind that are either, Artists, Not Artists (maybe we could/should call those Statistic people?) and Facilitators. That is to say, in more depth, there are people who focus their lives on passions, that are for the purpose of bringing them joy. There are may types of art forms, acting, singing, scientists, politicians, gamers… I could keep going. Artists, are people that when in the midst of their particular flavor of passion, time has no meaning. I mean truthfully, time really has no meaning anyway, so being in that passion that art is the truth – time is the lie. These people are of all walks of life, and all types and qualities, but the single thing they share, is when they talk about the thing they are passionate about, because it so integral for them to life – they are inspiring. Knowing nothing about what they are passionate about doesn’t really matter, if they are a kind artist, they are able to take you on the adventure they experience when they are in their art, when they are working, and you want to be there with them, you want to do whatever you can to help them do it. It makes you feel alive. These people are “artists” – I truly feel most people have the ability to be artists, but its not something that all of us gravitate to naturally.

There are “not artists” – this is not to say they people are any lessor. They are good people, they are practical people, living happy lives, finding things to make them happy. Purchasing the art of the artists, speaking about life. They can enjoy art, from a distance, but the things that bring them joy are not related to the work. They can lose track of time in other ways. These people are even more varied than the artists. And having spent alot of my life as one of these people. The practical people. The people that form a routine, and enjoy the pleasure of the expected, the predictable. They plan, they pick, they chose, they want structure. They find Joy in so many more varied ways than artists, its kinda hard to explain this, although I will say one thing that brings them joy – atleast in my experience Most of the “not artists” is the completion element. That is not to say that Artists do not get joy out of completion, but they get melancholy more from it, in a way that Not artists tend not to get. Not artists, enjoy the completion, because it brings the excitement and the vexation of the starting something new. The frustrastration and struggle that comes with something new that is a new challenge, with the confidence, and predictability that comes with knowing that it too will complete, and there will never be an end to the things that will need to be accomplished.

There are Facilitators – these are people with the Artist and Not artist traits more in balance in their lives. They are driven to not artist tasks necessarily, but they do enjoy them. They do however enjoy the artistic tasks equally or even sometimes more. They however, have a passion driven from inspiring, and being inspired, by both Artists and Non-Artists. They are the ones that can see both sides, and they walk the ground in middle. They can see the passions in artistic works, the ability to transcend time to change things, to bring about something that hasn’t ever existed in some form that is new and helpful, maybe not to themselves, but to the world. They can see the steadfast competence of the non-artists, the predictability, the loyalty, the mountains of accomplishments, and achievements, they can see the goal oriented driven to a predictable result that is helpful and dependable, the task oriented accomplishment. They see both, and they want to help both improve, they stop and listen, and watch, they share a word of positive thought or encouragement, helping see an external perspective for both the Artist and the Non-Artist, they challenge thinking, and help keep both the Artist and Non-Artist from falling into an abyss of anything other than Joy. This is what brings Joy to the facilitator, they know that their passion is in helping other people achieve, and seeing the results are inspiring and hope minding and they have more work to do, always seeking out for that next person to help.

For much of my adult life, I have been a facilitator. I have spent the majority of my life trying to help other people reach their passion, of finding incredible joy in seeing their passion. It has inspired me to be surrounded, many times, by artists. It has inspired me to be surrounded by non-artists. I have been good at facilitating. I have learned and mastered many lessons. This has not necessarily been a natural thing for me. I feel that this was a compromise for me, a way of not fully embracing my artistic self, my artistic nature, of being afraid of what it would mean if I were an artist, what art would I be? Where would I be? What would I do? How would I support myself? All of these self doubts, are what drove me to stay comfortable in the happy place between Non-artist and Artist – to carve out a niche of competence that wasn’t giving up artistic ideas, and pursuits while not completely forcing me to embrace the non-artistic, which while I am competent at, does not bring me a joy. As I have gotten older, I have gotten more comfortable, been able to find joy in many of the non-artistic tasks, the completion of many tasks bringing me a satisfaction much like joy. Each time however, it has left me with mild feeling of frustration, feeling more like I have missed something.

In reflection of my life, I can see many times that the universe has presented me with a Door, a pathway to artistic pursuits, many many times, I can see that at each turn, I was scared and too afraid to step over and open that door. I can not say I have missed all of the doors, there are many I have opened and walked thru, and those few times in my life seem to have been incredible, and brief, as I have fallen back into old patterns that have led me back to that facilitation pathway again and again.

Its a different time in my life, and I am finding great joy in as many artistic things as I can put my heart into. And smiling at myself for the blessing I have each day, to do these things – that its not too late, for me to find my bliss in these things.

Tomorrow we are doing a family “lets go see the lights” trip. It should be a blast, we have a limo to drive us around, and allow us all to have just camaraderie together without someone having to focus on the road. We have dinner reservations, and we decided to do this event together, instead of presents, as the time and company is the best present we can give each other right now. We have tasty baked goods to indulge in – sufficed to say, it will probably NOT be a good eating night – but it will be a TASTY eating evening 🙂 – we have some ideas about where and when we will be about, but mostly it will just be a party together. Its a very odd holiday, and this is a very odd year, and I think this will be a fun adventure to share.

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