Reasons

Anais Nin, diarist and personal creative hero once famously wrote “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.”

It’s a kind of ugly, frustrated truth in the 5th volume of her diaries – in which she returns to the diary as her primary work. If this is about your ego, she implies, you’ll only be disappointed. 

But even when you are creating from that undeniable call, the ego is still present. We all wish to be acknowledged, seen, celebrated. We imagine a success so grand it changes our whole lives. We want to prove ourselves outward. SEE!? I’m not crazy. I did it. I am good enough. In the cacophony of the fantasies, we forget what propels us forward. What brought us here in the first place. We mistake bliss for “never suffering again”, and we get burnt out and depressed when we never seem to achieve it.

That’s where I’ve been most of this year. I keep hoping and waiting and pushing for some sort of grandiose transformation, like the after shot in a makeover show. 

And here we have Allie’s life post-making it! See the wood floors, the technology that works consistently, the extremely handsome boyfriend who comes with great hiking dog. 

I want to skip all the nail biting, and the “will it or won’t it”, flip to the end of the book, and breath a sigh of relief. 

I’m afraid – what if I never prove myself? What if, for the rest of my life, I’m just making music for a handful of people; scraping up just enough to get by? 

That is when I return to this line – I am here, channeling this music, because that is how I breathe, that is where I cry out, that is where my voice is clearest, loudest and most true. It might just be this hard forever, but it really doesn’t matter because as much as I would LIKE all the things – they aren't why I write songs, make videos, create these little confessions for you. 

I do this because I must - and more than that, because I believe that a world in which making art isn't so damn hard STARTS with more and more of us deciding that making beauty is more important than all of the status and security and stuff playing by the rules could get us. 

If you're feeling discouraged, what is your why? What dream have you chosen so fiercely that achieving it isn't even the point anymore? 

Love and Wildness, 

Allie