the last 2 paragraphs imparticular. : Trailrunner:

From Paul Weinfield

I recently heard a quote attributed to August Wilson: “The first job of an artist is to survive.” I don’t think it means simply that you have to pay rent before you write. I think it means that an artist has to make sure the artist within survives.

It’s surprisingly easy to kill that person. You become so busy managing life that you stop creating it. You become a consumer rather than a producer of your experience. Eventually, songs, poems, and paintings start to feel like memories from some quaint, distant era.

I was talking with a friend about how the archetype of the artist is less fashionable these days. Everyone wants to use art for something else: healing, marketing, capturing attention. But artists have always known that art isn’t for anything else. That’s the whole point.

This habit of consuming goes deeper than art. When we struggle, we tend to take refuge in consuming identities. Maybe I’m an entrepreneur. Maybe I’m an empath. Maybe I’m a Buddhist. These labels are like cheap plastic umbrellas sold in the middle of a rainstorm: we use them for a while, to no great effect, and then discard them.

But the self isn’t something to consume. The self is a relationship. And like any relationship, it’s created by how you show up: how you speak, how you listen, how you make and keep promises to yourself. The most important question isn’t, Who am I? It’s, What kind of relationship am I creating with myself?

The Buddha is often misquoted as saying, “There is no self.” What he actually said was that all conditioned things are not-self. Look at your body, your mind, your personality: none fully answers the question Who am I? But another question is more useful: How am I relating to all this? Is my relationship with my body one of anger? With my mind, one of constant stress?

The truth is, we have less control over our lives than we think. But we do get to decide how we relate to them. You can relate to your life as a bored, tired consumer waiting to be entertained.

Or you can show up like an artist.