Slow horizon: A reflection

Taking art "full-time"

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Photo by Fabian Centeno

Process

It is easy to bemoan the constraints of time on an artistic life. A career must be built, a job needs to be done, and various duties call, when all one may want to do is sit at their desk and create. Many wish to pull income from their art so they can leave the burden of work behind, a brave few even take the step to do this, and even fewer do this for years on end. I do love the call to consciously choose what we want in life and to deeply pursue it in a “full-time” way. On the surface that is an ideal state, but what if “full-time” was not about the hours spent? Perhaps, and perhaps more deeply, “full-time” is a practical way to frame how one walks through their everyday existence.

Many of you have heard me say I strive to write thirty minutes of poetry per day. That may mean only one line comes or it may mean an entire poem flows, but no matter. If thirty minutes is spent with pen hovering above paper, I have done what I’ve set out to do. While that is a practical point of view, what if I choose the impractical identity of being a poet all day, even while earning my income from a different source of work? What if that identity is carried even as I manage people, filter spreadsheets, or lead a meeting in a boardroom? Perhaps then I have become a full-time poet without upending my life.

Carrying a full-time artistic identity leads to a readiness to create in small moments, such as on a fifty-five minute flight between work meetings and home. If there are fifty hours a week where I am wearing only a corporate identity it is easy to sift through email in these moments, providing a feeling of production while in reality only producing the need to respond to more email. But this past December, carrying the “full-time poet identity” had me in a place of attention where I was poised to write when spare minutes appeared. Slow horizon was drafted during one of these moments on this short midwestern flight. I didn’t have my writing notebook along, but I did have a work notebook, so I just wrote of the beauty I saw and the questions I had in the blank pages between the history of corporate conversations.

Of course, writing is the easiest art form to take on the go. But the meaningful question is, what does claiming a full-time creative identity as part of your everyday life mean for your artistic life? Does this make you more ready and more committed to your craft? Does this lead you to a place where the frustrations around time constraints dissipate?

I’ve found it certainly holds these possibilities.

Themes

Slow horizon speaks to questions of direction and prompts us to recognize that though our logical mind wants it, there is no clarity in destination until we have arrived. What is clear is that any path is directed by many small choices. Life offers multiple paths with obscured destinations. Few paths appear continual, all are sure to be winding, and while at times they are made of glowing steps of brilliance, they always contain strides of dark quietude. How we arrive at where we are going is by taking a next step, then the next, and then the next. If we accept the uncertain outcomes of our choices as a type of play, life holds the possibility of releasing the anxiety that an expected outcome typically delivers.

Some choices, even when taken with clear intent, lead to regret. Regret can be a powerful driver to alter course by choosing a path that seemingly takes us in a direction away from frustrations we currently hold. When those are decisions to move in a more loving, relational way of being, I’d say regret holds a great power to improve our life. However, if we wield regret to write a story of how our current life is subpar, we fool ourselves, as if through different choices we would have been assured a better current environment. The fact is that where we stand today is the obscured horizon we tried to see in a prior moment. To have made different choices would have led to a different place, but a better place? One will never know.

Finally, wherever you arrive, you being there is the only constant. How we relate to ourself and to our circumstances informs how we feel more then the circumstances around us.

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Final thought

There are certainly terrible circumstances that people are handed, circumstances that traumatize, and circumstances that no one would ever choose. My observations do not deny that and are not meant to minimize that fact. Certainly, when in these situations, the next step is to take a step of care, compassion, and sometimes leaving circumstance behind. But simply put, even in this setting, wherever you are, this is where you are. This moment is it, and the only choice you get to make is the one immediately in front of you.

So choose, and take the step. Choose, and step. Repeat.

May you find peace in your step today.

Brian

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If you missed the original “A Poem” post of Slow horizon, you can find it here. Enjoy!

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