Wrong Directions and Rabbit Holes

It’s January 17th. I’ve missed, let’s see, three personal deadlines to write a blog post for a project I want to do called 52 Truths. The idea was to post every week of the year, whether it be writing and/or images.

Well, I guess the first truth of the year is the creative beast is wilful and sometimes just will not be tamed.

It was not for not having done the work. Oh, I was working. Almost obsessively so. The concept for 52 Truths came to me on Dec 31, 2021. It was based on my growth as an artist to explore what resonates to me using what is available to me, regardless of pressures, insecurities or distractions. Stay true.

But then when it came time to start I got distracted by something that resonated with me a little too much. The very next day after deciding I’d explore truth I uncovered a lie.

I thought: perfect timing. Rather than explore a truth this week, let’s start with a lie and the truth around it.

You kind of want the creative process to just flow uninterrupted. Then you want to take a step back and let it settle before you get to the editing phase. But the way the post flowed, I couldn’t figure out what part to pull out to stand on its own, or what parts to take out to cut it down. I’d try to rewrite bits of it to make it work. Or I’d try to distill it, and more would come up. Stuff I liked. But just like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice mishap, my first little post started to get out of control. The more I tried to reign it in, the more it generated pages and pages, and still more pages.

Well. There is just so much truth about lies, isn’t there?

We’re funny about being lied to. Despite research suggesting humans tell multiple lies a day, other research suggests that we tend to believe what we’re told. But a black or even grey lie thwarts closure, it shifts the circle of a narrative off track and it interferes with our sense of justice. Even when you know the person is a chronic liar, it can be just as hard to let it go as it is to try to close a loop that will never get closed. We’re wired that way.

Eventually I realized it was too soon. Some things just aren’t ready for prime time as much as you are ready to dedicate time to it, or your deadline tries to force it. I was being driven by the wrong thing. But in the working of it, the visual image came to me clear as day.

The image above is not it. No, there is a bit more rabbit holing to do. And the pressure is off now. Maybe I don’t even need to finish it. I’m trying not to make pronouncements these days.

But now that I think of it, I think you can apply this nonlinear, imperfect process to just about everything in our lives. Things never go according to plan, and you never get everything done when you want it. There’s always that human element. Now isn’t that the truth?