nothing to lose
I'm not afraid of loss. Failure doesn't scare me. At least, not as much as it used to. It's not because of some inherent courage or bravery. It's not because I've discovered some means of insulating myself from the effects of tragedy. It's more of an immunity. A resistance built up over a lifetime of being exposed to the world’s fickle elements.
I've lost everything more than once. Watched decades of accumulation and accomplishment slip away. Stood powerless against personal, relational, and financial catastrophe. I've failed more times and in more ways than a newsletter can contain.
It taught me to hold on to everything loosely. To never cling to or acquire anything I can't bear to lose. It taught me that, at best, everything you could ever hope to garner, are things you're only borrowing.
But it also taught me what it is that really scares me.
It's meaninglessness.
It's insignificance.
It's irrelevancy.
The thing that truly frightens me is that nothing I will ever make, create, or do will matter or mean anything. That all my work is unimportant and essentially negligible.
But, interestingly enough, the thing I'm learning about that fear, is that if you really sit with it, if you really pay attention, and look closely, you start to notice something.
Underneath the disenchantment and the heartbreak, under the distrust and the anxiety, is a kind of liberation. A kind of discovery.
If it doesn't matter. If it's inconsequential. If it makes no difference ultimately, then you're free to do anything creatively. You can follow every artistic impulse. You can chase every creative curiosity.
If there's nothing to achieve. If there's nothing to gain. If there’s no place to get to, then there's nothing to be afraid of. There's no such thing as failure. And there's nothing to lose.
P.S. ICAD Day 216 - 219 - The collages below, and many more, are available for purchase here.
P.P.S - Recently had an opportunity to do a collaboration with artist and graphic designer Jorge Pavon. He was a pleasure to work with. He sent me a digital design that I printed out and then created an analog collage with it. Hope you like it.
When you decide that there is nothing to lose, then all that is left to do is start winning. Art can be the best engine to achieve this.
It's like light inside the black hole, isn't it? Perhaps there's no complete dark.
These works are stunning, Duane. I find them immensely inspirational; they give me the itch to write. I never knew just how much I loved a collage until I started viewing your work.