So Close, Yet So Far Away
How do you know when you’ve “made it”? What signs do we get to affirm that we are making the right decisions? When does the journey let up and give you a chance to take a breath of success?
At some point in the past year, I’ve been asked this question or heard this question asked by most of the creatives that I am around frequently. Art, in its essence, is communal in the sense that both the audience and the creator are in constant conversation with each other about an idea or a topic, making it natural as a creator to expect a response from the audience that will either confirm or deny their existence. This same conversation between ourselves and an audience is also happening simultaneously with the universe around us, the difference being, the universal response that we are often expecting is much more subtle in its approach than we may be aware to receive. The trick to understanding this subtly is constant motion.
Recently one of the homies, Mark Acquaye, released a podcast called 99 Celsius that focuses on the journey of artists and how we handle the rollercoaster that we have thrown ourselves into. In alignment with the rest of my surroundings, he too asked me the question but in a way in which I never viewed it; a way through an analogy that broadened my perspective on the answer to it.
“How do you know when water is boiling”, a seemingly obvious answer as we have all paced a pot on a stove and waited for the bubbles to rise. To his point, until the water reaches a boil, there are no visual cues that would let you know how close or far away the water temperature is to its goal of 100 degrees Celsius. To take it to a scientific level, the atoms have to remain in motion, moving faster as time passes in order to heat the water. As I’ve thought bout this over the past couple of weeks, the answer is clear from this perspective. It isn’t up to us to know whether or not we have made it or not, the water doesn’t determine when it boils but it trusts in the laws of nature. Similarly for us as creators, as humans, we do not determine when we’ve made it but as the energy, the passion and the artistry within us remain in motion, we remain one step closer to our boiling point. Our only job within this natural cycle of balance is to remain inspired, to keep our sparks lit, to find others that are aligned with similar visions and keep motivation in abundance so that the passion or atoms within us have one job as well, also to remain in motion.
Mark is Launching his Podcast tomorrow, Monday, February the 17th. If you are a creative, a business owner, a creative, a person passionate about their craft or just an individual chasing a goal, this podcast will be one of motivation to keep your inner passion alive. Follow them on Instagram and stay tuned for his upcoming episodes.