Never underestimate fear…

It is fully committed to keeping you from doing your art, your passion, your whatever makes you, you.  

You can befriend it. Make altars to protect against it. Talk to your therapist about it.  Make collages. Dance. Pray. I’ve done all of that and then some. (Prayer actually helps. A little. Therapy, not so much.)

Every day, I still have to wrestle fear to the ground, before it can yank me back into the familiar, dull terrain of doing the laundry or polishing my not silver, ware.

This crafty MOFO wants blood, preferably by way of paper cut. Slow, deliberate… and practically unnoticeable.

When we’re both avoiding our art, my friend Liz Grant (pee-your-pants funny comedian) and I theorize about the roots of resistance, which is just a fancy word for fear: 1. Past-life public shaming. 2. Creativity’s evil twin trapped in the amygdala. 3. Addiction to hiding. 4. Addiction to misery. 5. Who the hell cares.

It doesn’t matter why.  But if you must have a reason, find one, and then get on with the business of bumbling your way through the dark. I’ll be right there with you, fending off resistance with one hand, and making art with the other.

They say don’t wait for inspiration — that a comedy show, novel, sculpture, painting, play carry forth on the back of willingness.

I say, don’t wait for the fear to go away. It won’t.  

We have a momentary reprieve, if we’re lucky, contingent on showing up for the thing we do.