Art, like life, has many ups and downs. It makes you question yourself.  It makes you question the way you see the world. Is this the right way to view the world? What can I not see today that would filter how I view life?

I am constantly amazed at how art challenges me. It guts me, honestly.

Does what I create have value? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Am I really contributing when I just make something pretty? What does this mean that I want to create?

These are the questions that swirl in my head. And no offense to other artists, but I constantly am met with this guilt:

I should seriously stop wasting my time on this… You need to be doing something productive. Something that contributes to society, not blowing your time on pretty pictures. (Here is where the A-Type moron meets the creative…)

But I still create – although not nearly as much as I’d like to. And I still am haunted by the lack of creation. I am not going to lie, it feels so selfish. To think that I have some kind of voice I need to express, some kind of message to give to the world though my art.  Who the hell am I? Besides, some of my art is messages, other times it just is pretty pictures.

I have been out of the art game for some time now, consistently anyway. I devoted my time to working in a company that ultimately humiliated me. Well, a superior, not my company. And I felt like I was contributing there. I felt like I was doing something valuable with my life – most of the time anyway. But why did I feel that doing work that was profitable, was more valuable than when I create? Who is telling me this? Who has sold me this bill of goods and told me that what I do, when I initiate it on my own, is not worth the same as the work I do when I support someone else’s vision, someone else’s mission?

Do I have some kind of outlook on my own creation that lessens it’s value? Do other artists think these things? How many other artists have given up, thrown in the towel, similar to me, that have deemed their artwork worthless in the grand scheme of things?

I am comforted by Eat, Pray, Love‘s author, Elizabeth Gilbert .  In her podcast with Tim Ferriss (http://su.pr/2XjW6D), she talks in depth about pushing through, showing up, and holding hands with fear, and allowing it to be present while continuing to show up and do the work.  The podcast is really, really great by the way… just in case you’re interested…

So I am attempting to show up. I am doing a “pretty work” right now and I am going to enjoy it. I am going to push through the fear that it’s worthless, that it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of life. I am going to try to see this as something productive to the world (despite the demons in my head). I’m holding hands with fear and allowing it’s presence to be there, but choosing to just work alongside it.