Monday Rules (Part 9)

Rule 9: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.

The great myth about us artists is that we create our art through suffering.

Pfft.

Sure, there have been those who were able to use their unhappiness or emotional maelstroms as fuel for their art — looking at you, Sylvia Plath and Dmitri Shostakovich — but you don't have to be unhappy to create art.

This is not to say that the creating of your art won't drive you to distraction or to drink or to roaming the heaths at night, but on the whole Making the Thing That Is Not should spring from the joy of creation. (Self-doubt? Impostor syndrome? Fear of failure? Sure, why not, but if you're going to let that stop you...)

I like the way Sister Corita Kent phrases "It's lighter than you think."  What is it? And is lighter referring to weight or to darkness? You should let that little koan into your head. Cross-stitch it and hang it in your workspace.

It's lighter than you think.