How to risk it
Notes on caring SO MUCH but NOT AT ALL
Hey you,
I was going to write about consistency, but my notes got so long that I had to admit I wasn’t writing a newsletter, but a creating workshop. So that’s going to happen. Watch this space for the date and time!
Instead, I felt drawn to write an essay-in-notes about creative risk-taking.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that to make something real, you have to care SO MUCH and give nary a hoot at the same time.
How annoying. It’s like asking someone on a date: you have to like them enough to risk rejection, but not need them to say yes so desperately that you make them uncomfortable or forget how to talk.
Once I wanted a relationship to work out so badly that I ignored the fact that I didn’t enjoy his company. When he dumped me, I cried for three days. On the fourth day, the spell broke with a loud thought: “It’s time to live as if no one is coming to save you from your life.”
Like love, you can’t create freely if it’s only done under the condition that no one hurts your feelings and you win, in the end.
Sometimes I mentally try to control the end of the world. I imagine how I might life-hack my way out of disaster.
Sometimes I worry about the end of my comfortable life: when every joint aches as soon as I wake, the mail fills with higher bills and smaller pay checks, and my daughter turns to her friends instead of me to comfort her.
The mistake is in thinking the end of the world and the end of what I liked are the same thing.
I can no longer forget my fragility as easily as I once did, and I am glad.
Fragility is awe turned inside-out. Like Neutral Milk Hotel sang, “How strange it is to be anything at all.” (Why yes, I was a moody indie kid in the 00s.)
This morning I was momentarily stunned by the fact that I have a BLENDER. What sorcery in my HOUSE. And I have a house too?! Sort of — as part of a deal with the bank. What a gift, despite the potential for take-backsies.
You and I have never met but here we are, connected over invisible waves. And “women were not recognized as or legally allowed to become publishing professionals until the late nineteenth century.”
My ego shouts, “I don’t get paid for this and I don’t get enough comments and I want more readers and blah blah blah blah”
I am entitled to nothing but to be in my process.
That’s not a punishment for anything.
Scientifically, there are two kinds of risk. I made that up.
The first kind will sit glassy-eyed at a slot machine, spending hours and hundreds of dollars for the chance to win. It makes bets and grey compromises toward the promise of a better tomorrow.
The second kind that says that I am owed nothing and own nothing, in the bigger picture. So I will let my time, talents, and tears flow through me — in the direction of my awe.
The question quiets my chatter:
What would I do if I had nothing to lose or gain?
Love,
Maria
P.S. I feel like I have the best job in the world (for me). This summer, I’m making room for new 1:1 spots. No matter how established you are (or aren’t), building a more intimate, trusting, exciting, and stable relationship with your work is the most potent thing you can do for your well-being.
Once you’ve done this kind of inner work, nothing and no one can take it away. Fill out an application and let’s talk.
P.P.S. Share this with a friend, would you? Because friends don’t let friends take creative risks alone.
I love and aspire to live this way. I call it "full engagement with zero attachment." Jedi level life training. 💥💕
“13. I am entitled to nothing but to be in my process.” Yesssss. And for those of us who have lived through freeze, this is so clearly not a punishment but an unbelievable gift 🎁