405 Wandering but not lost

I’m in an absolute slump. 

These few days, there’s been an extreme lack of motivation in doing absolutely anything.
 Self-doubts started creeping in.
 Self-pity, hate, it was difficult to stomach.
 Have you ever had a feeling of seeing yourself act something and there nothing you can do to control it, like seeing a movie play out right in front of you?



I was at such a low point that I was even considering stopping my “everydays” project.
 (I’m calling it “everydays” now like Mike Winkelmann.)

Then I accidentally got hold of Glenn Kurtz’s book - Practicing, and what he said perfectly reminded me of what is the purpose of all this. For doing the everydays…

“Practicing is training; practicing is meditation and therapy. But before any of these, practicing is a story you tell yourself, a bildungsroman, a tale of education and self-realization. For the fingers as for the mind, practicing is an imaginative, imaginary arc, a journey, a voyage. You must feel you are moving forward. But it is the story that leads you on.

From the outside, practicing may not seem like much of a story… Yet practicing is the fundamental story. Whether as a musician, as an athlete, at your job, or in love, practice gives direction to your longing, gives substance to your labor.

Practicing is a story, but not one in “square time,” not a simple path to perfection. Instead, it is a myth you weave to draw up the many strands of your doubt and desire… The story you tell yourself … must embrace everything you experience when you sit down in the presence of your ideal.

When you sit down to practice, however casually, you cast yourself as the hero and victim of your own myth. You will encounter obstacles; you will struggle, succeed, and struggle some more. The story of your practice weaves all this together, absorbing what is within you and making it productive. Because when you truly believe your story of practicing, it has the power to turn routine into a route, to resolve your discordant voices, and to transform the harshest, most intense disappointment into the very reason you continue.”



Sometimes I worry how I’ll come up with the image for the next day. It seems that there’s nothing I can do but to meet my inspiration half way with just doing the work.



“I sit down to practice the fullness of my doubts and desire, my fantasies and flaws. Each day I follow them as far as I can bear it, for now. This is what teaches me my limits; this is what enables me to improve. I think it is the same with anything you seriously practice, anything you deeply love.” 



Thank you, Glenn, for exactly writing what I didn’t know I needed to understand.

Sometimes the universe has its unique way of telling you things. You really just have to pay attention.


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