The first time he came over to my apartment he went straight to my bookshelf. I felt like he was reading my diary by reading the titles of my books.
“WHAT’RE YOU DOING OVER THERE?!”
I was so embarrassed. But when he turned around, the look on his face was such a pure, curious admiration that my fear of being judged for all my self help and creative books faded.
The other day, now many months after that moment, I sat in his room looking at his bookshelf. I thought about how all the titles are an accumulation of him. All the different parts of him. To name a few: Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms; The Way of Men; The Intelligent Investor; The Year of Living Danishly; The Equations of Life; The Hobbit; The 48 Laws of Power; Hawaiian Herbal Medicine; The Modern Herbal Dispensatory, etc.
He says he has a “bad addiction” of buying books off of Amazon that tickle his fancy.
He works a blue collar job - and he carries around a pen and paper in his uniform pocket to write different ideas down. I’d imagine most of his coworkers carry vape pens or snacks or phones in their pockets. He complains to me how impatient he is - for the next thing. To get out of this job. Paired with that, he’ll say, “But who am I to think that I can write a book? Do these creative things?”
I smile to myself because - he already is.
Often you are too close to your life to notice all the steps and actions that you are taking in moving towards something. Elizabeth Gilbert describes to live a creative life is to choose curiosity over fear; not just once, but over and over - and to constantly choose curiosity as a way of life.
Although I’m excited to read whatever publications he eventually writes, I think the moments of pulling out your pen and paper in places where we actually don’t really feel ourselves - that’s living the creative dream. The moments in time where we don’t feel as though we are tapping into what we are fully capable of - so we pull out a pen and paper - and read books - to make sense of it all. What a courageous act of self love and embracing what else might be possible.
If only we could see ourselves from the lens of people who adore us - with the perspective of it’s already worked itself out.
Thanks for being here!
Have you two watched "Patterson" with Adam Driver? I thought of it reading this post and recommend it!