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inspiration and motivation

A SURPRISING REMEDY TO HELLSCAPE 2016

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background-1As Jon Oliver said recently, “ Look way up there in the sky. You see that? That’s rock bottom!”

Dear God, we need joy, laugher, beauty, and truth that cannot be tarnished or destroyed with “future revelations”. We need to stop for just a moment and agree on the myriad of things we actually agree on. We need to channel the intense emotions and angst we justifiably feel in this year that is nothing put a parade of horribles into something that isn’t tearing ourselves or others down. We need to see and be inspired by beauty, humor, and truth and let it heal us and change us and let it be enough. Because it has to be. Because that is the only remedy, the only antidote to this war of words.

We have seen how words can divide, destroy, corrode, and manufacture fear, anger, and despair. We have watched the experts at spin and distortion, and had to take note of their power. What we write, what we speak, has the power to damn us or save us. Fewer and fewer people read for enjoyment, as if it is pointless, but that precisely is the point. We need to see truth and beauty somewhere, so we remember what it looks like.

  1. Writers and other artists, tell the truth. We have no choice. Special interests and money can’t corrupt most of us, because we have nothing to do with either. We reflect the truth of what is going on in our times. It may be our own personal truth, but it is authentic truth, all the same. It is an effective counter-balance to the land of lies that has become our political landscape. It grounds us to reality without shouting in our faces. It stands on its own, and really can’t be tilted or spun.

I am frequently asked why I write in the same tone of voice as someone would ask, “ Hey! Why are you strolling naked down the street?” The implication is, of course, the odds against monetary success are so low, why bother? The answer to me is, the times we live in require it. I have to do it and can’t back away from it.

2) Beautiful writing, like any thing of beauty, restores our faith in the universe, if only for a little while. It’s like a little meditation on hope.

Words are powerful, as are joy, beauty and hope, inspiration and finally, perspective, and words can create all of these good things. There is already enough invective, finger pointing, and anger. Almost everyone has had enough of it and is looking for the opposite, an oasis.

3) Writers can reflect the times in a non horrifying way, through crafting a work that is beautiful in its own right, shifting the focus from what is hopeless to what is possible, even if just for today. And that matters.

4) We will remind you of our shared humanity and the very good things about it. We will make you laugh and make you cry about something other than the state of our country. We will create something beautiful that cannot be destroyed in the next new cycle. Things that will endure no matter what happens on November 8th.

 

 

So, keep writing, even if it’s in a journal. That’s where many a poem, a novel, an opus began. Keep reading— we all need you.

I’m going to keep doing both. I’m going to keep trying to ignite the sparks that alight the beauty, sacredness, and commonality of our daily lives, and celebrate the beauty of our humanity.

L.E. Kinzie lives in Austin, Texas, with a ridiculous and ever-changing menagerie of pets and her family. A recovering ex-lawyer, she is a passionate observer of humanity and the common threads that bind us all together—beauty, creation, and creating art.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s?k=poetry+books+L+E+Kinzie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CREATIVITY AND COMMERCE

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Miss me? I fell into the abyss. Hate it when that happens. I started out creating something amazing! But somehow I ended up in . . . . commerce

An artist’s life can be marked in distinct periods of BC and AD (Before Commerce and After Development). In the middle is purgatory.

This is much the same life cycle of an entrepreneur as they create a product, company, or app and then engage in the process of attempting to fund it and bring it to the marketplace.

Creation and commerce couldn’t be more different, and yet, one can deceptively and suddenly become the other. It starts with a crazy dream, becomes real and tangible, and then can become an existential crisis.

At the heart of me, I love to create beauty and move people in some way. That’s what drives me in whatever setting I’m in—contributing something that wasn’t there before. It’s where I find the happiest, fullest, truest version of myself. It’s where I am surest of who I am and that God is here with me. This is because at this phase my ego has disappeared, and I am merged with the thing I am creating. The soul is 100% naked and beautiful.

But, the biggest trick of the ego is to make us think it isn’t there, and that’s when things get capsized.

For example, I just finished my Dream Creation. All of us have one of those in us, I think. I couldn’t leave this earth without doing a collection of the best of my poetry, and the creation of this baby was sheer ecstasy, like nothing else. This, to me is the essence of creating– total freedom to take it wherever the spirit leads me, all while linked to my Creator.

But, after I finished creating this gorgeous, vibrant, personally transformative baby, I entered the production zone. I stopped feeling and doing, and started trying and forcing solutions, timeframes, and deadlines. I necessarily engaged others’ help to assist me into turning it into a beautiful package for others to consume and hopefully enjoy. This is exactly when ego took over and I found myself on the sadistic hamster wheel of others’ choices, others’ deadlines, others’ priorities and schedules—all completely necessary. But the second it became a product, God’s timing went out the window, as I tried to manage and exceed other’s expectations and even my own. When ego entered, so did the idea of competition, which I’d never even considered, and then fear. What if I’m not enough? What if my baby is really ugly, and I just don’t know it?

Coincidentally, I felt progressively tired, overwhelmed, irritated, angry and hopeless, equally in turns. Because commerce is completely outwardly driven, it’s about everyone else and whether they like you or are even paying attention. Paradoxically, my ego had stepped in trying to manage everything and excel, but the rest of me shrunk.

What happened? I had let the spirit ebb out of the work– the very essence and soul of it, in my hurry to for it to be born.

I now realize process is a metaphor that should stay on the assembly line. Creativity isn’t a process used in a factory: it’s a birth.

To be mired in process and mechanics forces the ego to take over and manage, like it’s an assembly line. Ego will always be tied to fear, and fear will always block God. But when I focus on fear I’m focusing on limitations: anathema to the creative spirit, which wants to run like a herd of mustangs.

The answer, at least for me, is to approach the commerce side of the equation with the same creative spirit of adventure I approach the creative phase, and to only allow limitations when it applies to time spent in commerce.

I can’t control who sees my art, who likes it, who buys it. I can reach people; if I do the best I can, while respecting that this new commercial landscape is the Wild, Wild West. I have to do my part, but not all of it is up to me. My creator is bigger than the Wild, Wild West, and he can change the topography as needed.

Maybe that’s why I miss Prince so much. He could deliver a production but he was never a product; he wouldn’t stand for it. His identity was his art, take him or leave him. He never submitted to the process.

I can’t ignore commerce, or it will ignore me. But maybe I can try to keep it in its rightful place, and limit the amount of time I spend in and on it so it doesn’t creep into my creative space, like the blob, crowding out creation itself, and the joy that goes with it.