The Van Gogh painting shown here (“Kornfeld Mit Zypressen”) accompanied an article in Pacific Standard Magazine entitled, “Come All Ye Failures – Though we wake in fear of mediocrity, let us cease to be crippled by it.” (http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/epic-fail)

“…the ambitions of our work, our projects, aren’t ours to impose. They are for us to discover. They are best discovered from a place that doesn’t self-judge or self-denigrate, a place beyond our own worst fears of not being good enough. That’s where we find meaning. And solace. That’s where we stop feeling like failures and start feeling like human beings.” (Christopher Cokinos)

As one who writes without expectation of formal publication or remuneration, I found this article by Mr. Cokinos helpful.  I have come to believe that my creative life is the expression of a gift and that, for myself and others, it needs to be offered to the greater community.   It is OK that my gift is simple, imperfect, or even just mediocre some of the time.  It’s taken me quite a long time to believe that I have this gift and that is enough.

The Van Gogh painting is appropriate. He, among all artists, created to save himself. In doing so, he saved so much more for posterity.  Van Gogh is, for me, as I suspect for so many of us, one of our greatest Muses.

“We can’t predict the fruits of our labor; we can’t even know if we’ll really go through with it.  Gratitude requires an unpaid debt, and we will be motivated to proceed only so long as the debt is felt.” (pp. 65-66)

“Having accepted what has been given to him – either in the sense of inspiration or in the sense of talent – the artist often feels compelled, feels the desire, to make the work and offer it to an audience.  The gift must stay in motion….Mary Sarton writes: ‘There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one’s gift to those one loves most…The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison.  It is as though the flow of life were backed up.'” (pp. 188-189)
C
From The Gift – Lewis Hyde

Mr. Hyde’s book is a “defense of the value of creativity.”  It is not only for the dedicated writer or artist, but for any of us who believe that creativity and gift is at the heart of our being and flourishing in our circumstances.  When we cease to create, in our own unique ways, and when we cease to offer our creation or give it away, we lose our heart, our compassion, and we begin to feel that there is not enough anymore, so that we must hoard what little or much we possess.  Creation is the understanding that there is more, always more, and giving it away brings the increase.