The discipline we bring into our art is a reflection of the discipline of our lives. Writing or loving cannot be done when we feel like it, but must be an active pursuit. Every artist must strive to live life through their art; willing, humbly and gratefully, to carry the burden of freedom by striving for our goal of independence. Devoted to remaining intune with the creation process; an independence from the world, and a dependence on the ability to do our work. People often misspeak and say “we do not have the time for mindfulness”, or ”we do not have the time for prayer”or, the worse, “I do not have time to do the things I care about”; actually, they do not have the energy. The energy has been exhausted by activities, while important, prevent us from living complete lives, and we lose the faith, and strength, in shifting our reality. Our realities are shifted through work, potency, faith, and rest; Rome was not built in a day. Just as the days quickly wind down and begin anew, cars always run out of gas, if they are not filled up, phones die without being charged, we are constantly giving out energy and without charging ourselves we become drained. How deep is your love for what you claim to love? It seems discipline, which is a proponent of genuine love, leads us closer into an artistic vocation. How we love our art is how we love a person; the way we respond to our art, through tiredness, is going to become the way we respond to our family when tired. The only way we can sustainably create is by seeing ourselves as influencing the evolution of the world; to believe, through our work, we have the potential to influence the function of the world.

Art comes,I believe, from an impulse to diagnose an illness or recognize an overlooked truth; every artist in all societies is a toothache signaling a stroke is coming.The stroke is to prevent the collapse of civilization by a group of people that are rarely respected or recognized while living. Art is designed to nurture the spirit of the world by being the archetypal mother; or by being a nurturing and authoritative God that demands respect, while also providing unconditional love. If love means to nurture a spirit, then an artist is a lover of the world because in recognizing and acknowledging its faults, while praising its beauty, we take responsibility for the future of the world. We must have the ability to see the world as a reflection of ourselves; while also seeing the world as an independent entity. There are very talented artists that give up creating because they’ve made no money, and, unfortunately, we’ve attached the value of our creations to the amount of money it has produced. We make art not as an egoistic projection of our turmoil, but by studying the way we harm ourselves, we understand how the world does the same. We developed compassion through a respect for other people’s suffering. The best writers in the world offered us a reflection of their time by sitting down and listening to the language and watching the action of their people. We must love our art and love the world. We are our only hope; we must constantly recalibrate the balance of the world.