How Long Can This Last?

I watched Mary Spender talk about how long recording artists can hope to have a career. About how bands and recording artists come and go, how some have success and then fade away. I realised that her point is true about all creative endeavours. It got me thinking about writing.

What else?

I’ve been writing for a long time. It’s a hobby and something that I love. Writing has become what I do and is a part of my identity. When I don’t write, I become a person who I don’t like.

To me, the question of “how long can this last?” is irrelevant.

I’ll write for as long as possible, for as long as I live.

In writing, I consider myself a success when I have the determination, patience and courage to finish a piece of work. When I publish that work, I free it and clear the mental space it inhabits by being incomplete and unpublished. I move on to the next piece.

To me, the success of my published works relies on people reading them and feeling challenged, entertained, or inspired. That’s it.

As I age, those that have inspired me, my heroes, are dying. Especially those that were twenty or thirty years older. I realised that I’ve overtaken a few, that I’m now older than they ever were. I’m left, as always, with their works of art. It’s the only way I have to know them.

I believe that is enough.

I’m able to love what they left behind. As I watch, listen, read and play, I discover who the artists were and am uplifted by them. Their art fills my life with beauty and genius, hope and joy.

As Julia Cameron says: they fill my well. Where else will I find the colour, mood and perfect detail I need, if not from the art I consume and from the life that I live?

How long can this last?

Writing until I die holds no fear, for I must live well to write well. I must live with as much grace and reverence for those that inspired me as I can. My life would be impoverished without the creative endeavours of those who came before me. They would be impoverished without the influence and inspiration of those who came before them.

I am richer for those influences. Richer than I think I deserve.

I’ve got a lot to pay for and a lot of wealth to give away, so why would I stop?