Saturday Morning

I’ve been having trouble sleeping all week, waking up early for interviews and for work. “Early” is a relative term, I stay up until 2 or 3 most nights, so anything before 10 AM is pretty early for me.

In any case, Saturday morning, no work, and of course I’m up at 8:30. Lying in bed does no good, just prolongs the inevitable. So what do I do? Play with my new phone, watching videos for two hours.

I stumbled onto this old favourite of mine, a post by “ZeFrank” of YouTube. He’s something of an internet celebrity, and after watching a bunch of his videos, it’s not hard to see why.

In this particular video, the one I linked right there, he talks about the creative career—whether you’re an artist, a painter or sculptor, stand up comedian, director, or a writer. It’s a touching video that gives me a lot of encouragement, and basically boils down to this: if there’s something you love, something you’re passionate about, something you see yourself doing and can’t imagine not doing, then do it!

Much like Ray Bradbury in my previous post, if you aren’t wildly pursuing that thing that you love, then what the hell are you doing? Your life is your conscious decision to do whatever it is you’re doing at this very moment. Assuming you’re not a slave, in which case it’d be weird for you to have access to a computer anyways, you’re responsible for you, and if you’re not doing what you love…. well, that’s on you.

Now it’s not always easy to figure that out. Sometimes it takes years, decades even, to nail down precisely what it is you love to do and feel called towards. That’s ok. The journey is half the battle.

But to not even begin searching? To simply wallow in an existence of uncertainty and half-attempts that amount to nothing, what sort of life is that? You are denying yourself the fruit of your being, the chords of your soul remain silent as you slowly whither in your own apathy. If you aren’t doing what you love, stop and ask yourself, “why not?” Really consider that question, and if you aren’t proud of the answer, if you don’t see yourself getting closer to what you love, then do something about it.

Maybe you’re a photographer, you love taking pictures of people. Then do it! Post them online, make a website, show your work. Someone will be interested in what you’re doing. Maybe you like to sing, you have a beautiful voice. Start singing! Record yourself, upload videos to YouTube. How many artists have become famous because they took a chance and showed the world what they could do? Maybe you’re a writer, like me, and you just love to share your thoughts and see them written out loud in your own voice. Then start writing. Do it now, write something down, even if you don’t share it, just get it out of yourself and into the world and see what’s inside.

Pick up your harp, find the notes that make you sing, and play them with all your heart. Only you know the tune, so don’t be afraid to look for it. The greatest tragedy would be settling for someone else’s tune, for it will never be your own.