a return to soul
bring back the Era of the Artist. not a political take.
I read a tweet by sighswoon the other day that said something along the lines of: I miss when everyone was an Artist instead of a Political Commentator, and it hit something so deep in me that I couldn’t help but write this essay to figure out why.
This past week has been fascinating for me. I am Canadian, so the election frenzy was something I was peering at from afar, like a curious child leaning towards an aquarium full of fish chaotically swimming in a frenzy, trampling over each other without any conscious rhythm or pattern, stuck in this limited, confined, invisible cage. I didn’t have much to add to the conversation, so I just sat back and observed it.
Then, I did notice that I had some thoughts to add to the conversation, that weren’t politically charged, but were charged with the lens of my own interests, observations, and experiences of being human. Things that I would usually write about and share on my platforms quite frictionlessly, but I now suddenly felt hesitant to share because of how I hypothesized they could be interpreted. I am fortunate to have built my platform on Twitter, where, for the most part, people respect, or at least try to respect, everyone’s willingness to think and speak freely. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn’t have anyone swarming me in my DMs, imploring me to speak out in support or in condemnation of one side or another.
But in this frenzy, I realized that I was still sort of dreading this week and the result, whatever it was, because I felt that I would be pressured to say something that I didn’t feel genuinely called to say, regardless of outcome. And in being stuck in that fear, I felt blocked artistically. I would look at anything I wanted to say and think: how might someone interpret this as some sort of morse code commentary on politics that I am not intending to make? It felt like I was going crazy, trying to sanitize anything and everything that I felt compelled to say of any sort of potential hidden message that I couldn’t even fully identify myself. It was quite pathetic to witness in myself, honestly. This fear of some mysterious external source of power that I was afraid to agitate, offend or upset because of what I felt it could Do To Me. Slowly though, I am realizing that, while there is some legitimacy to the fear I was feeling and the threats I was anticipating could be provoked by a wrongful interpretation of what I say, I was also creating this Fear in my head, which was blocking me from speaking freely as myself.
reclaiming the power of honest self-expression
In reality, this is my platform, and I can do and say exactly what I want. Not only can I, but I view it as my artistic duty. I imagine anyone (hello) who is taking precious time out of their lives to read this is here for exactly that: my thoughts. Not what I think my thoughts should be, or what I think others might approve of me for thinking.
Now, that does not mean this essay (or any essay) will be about my political takes or some ideology that you may or may not align with. This might be the opposite: a declaration that I have no interest in engaging in political discourse on demand, and if I ever do say something, it will be because I have a genuine, intrinsic calling to do so. This is also a declaration (mostly to myself) that I will not stifle my expression to appease some mysterious, invisible force outside of myself that has managed to infuse me (and I imagine others) with an unconscious, but undeniably existential fear that I should not speak my mind at the risk of being misinterpreted or hated. It’s silly and it’s not the world I want to live or make my art in. So, in taking the advice that I so readily share with others, I will simply continue creating what I want to see more of in the world. Which, in this case, means expressing myself honestly, without fear. Or perhaps more accurately: in spite of fear, which is all courage really is—feeling fear and choosing to act anyway.
what happened to Just Making Art?
Enabling (and encouraging) free expression, especially in artists, is how we arrive at the truth. Fear stifles honesty, because honesty is a natural byproduct of uninhibited self-expression. That is the crux of why I am writing this—to ask: why can’t Artists just be Artists anymore? I want to share without censoring myself, and I want to consume art and information from those who feel safe doing the same. I view this as a collective responsibility that we all have, to receive people’s ideas without antagonizing, dehumanizing or despising others for thinking differently than we do. In a way, this is the world we should all want—one where we do not all think the same. How boring it would be if we did!
an oasis from the Discourse
I have kept my platform as cleansed of ideology, politics, and whatever other worldviews tend to polarize people, as possible. I want this to be a reprieve, a place where you can get away from all of that—a place where you can come to return to your soul. I want this to be a place where we can tune out the noise of the world, and reconnect to ourselves. That is what writing is for me; I can only hope that is what reading my writing is like for you. Part of this, though, is also allowing myself to speak my mind freely, as I wish to. Right now, I don’t totally feel like I can do that. I take responsibility for my participation in imposing that limitation on myself; I notice myself censoring myself, holding back things that have no ideological charge at all, for fear that they might be taken out of context or misconstrued. It started as being careful, but is now bordering on being paranoid, and most of all: it’s just exhausting. And that isn’t what I want making Art to feel like!
did I put myself in this trap?
I feel like I have cornered myself into feeling like I need to be agnostic on everything, so as to not offend or miss the chance to resonate with someone. But I think in an effort to be so sanitized of ideology, I have begun to infringe on my own ability to self-express, on my own ability to speak and exist freely. And that is the core of what I stand for! Believe in! Teach! So, want to shift things just a little bit; to allow myself to speak and be as I truly am.
In truth, I am not even sure you, the reader, will notice a difference in my writing, my sharing. I am probably an easier book to read than I would like to admit. But it is more of a declaration to myself, a giving-myself-permission to just say what feels true to me, to not trim, reframe or morph my opinion into some agnostic dull signal that does not say anything very interesting at all. It’s a waste of my mind and my gifts, and above all: it’s just not honest. And the one thing I hope to be on here is honest.
confronting my shadow
I try to be a source of light, optimism, and spiritual potency on the timeline. Those are my gifts, and expressing them in abundance is the best way I know to honour them. But in an attempt to be this source of light, joy, love, etc, I notice that I can sometimes shrink myself, contract away from the edgier parts of me.
I recently did an interview with
of for this very cool project him and have put together (check it out here! — a zine of conversations on being human with a whole suite of interesting folks). And one of the questions that Alex asked me was something along the lines of: what is a quality you dislike or struggle with about yourself? To me, this is another way of asking someone: what is your shadow?I didn’t have an immediate answer that came to mind. I have worked to be as loving as possible towards myself, and when that isn’t possible, I try to at least be neutral. In the end, I gave an answer that went something like: I don’t know if there is anything I actively dislike about myself, so much as qualities I need to manage more consciously. I have become a better steward of my more challenging qualities, and I have found the right valves to express them through, one of them being my writing.
This answer still stands, but in this past week, I noticed that there are some qualities that don’t really have as safe of a home in the way that I express myself. Qualities that feel like they are stuck, thrashing against the surface of my consciousness at times, trying to break through before I shove them back down and tell them to stay quiet. I think the ones that have presented themselves most recently that I might add to my initial answer to Alex’s question are that I am quite disagreeable, assertive, passionate (sometimes excessively), and I really do not like to be told what to do. I doubt this is a surprise to anyone who truly knows me: I’ve never liked rules and have always excelled most when I find a way to break them and do my own thing. In the words of my friend who recently found out that half of my heritage is technically British, I am, quote, the least British person she has ever met, end quote.
In other words: I am stubborn. And one thing I am especially stubborn about is dispelling illusions that keep people stuck, stagnant, unable to expand their reality. Illusions that limit their capacity to enjoy their lives.
This week, I saw a lot of this, everywhere, and it frustrated me. Beautiful, wonderful, spiritually potent and robust humans TRAPPED by ideas, by movements who have a grip on them, who live in fear of being rejected, ridiculed, or worse, if they speak in a way that frays from what others want and expect from them. It’s ugly. It is not how we should be treating each other, and it is certainly not how we get to a world of more unity, compassion and self-expression, which is part of my mission, as I understand it.
So I feel I must speak on this phenomenon, not to offer up a political take (which I will not do, for that is not the purpose of my platform), but to mirror sighswoon’s reflection of: can we all stop expecting each other to be Political Commentators and instead bring back the Era of the Artist? This constant expectation to have an opinion breeds not only an unrelenting sense of exhaustion, fear and dread, but also rampant mass confusion that I think everyone is experiencing basically always. I am probably not going to change this whole wave of forcing-everyone-to-speak-loudly-about-something-that-they-might-independently-not-have-a-strong-opinion-on movement with one essay, but I can at least declare to you, my dear reader, that I will not be participating in such a thing — which you might have already noticed by now.
I may share things more freely that correspond to my identity, my story, my background, my beliefs that are rooted in my experiences of the world (which I support others doing as well!). But if I don’t have a personal experience or a reason to feel intrinsically compelled to share on something, I won’t be doing so. And I encourage you to reclaim your agency and do the same. You don’t need to obey anyone who is trying to force you or even aggressively convince you to think (and then speak on) one thing or another. You are an individual. You have a wonderful, intelligent, robust, critically thinking and aware mind. You have a pulsing miracle between your ears. USE IT! Let yourself come to your own conclusions instead of blindly accepting what is packaged and presented to you as fact. I know I started this essay talking about how this happens politically, but it applies to all things. My writing this to you is a direct result of me intensely interrogating flawed stories and prescriptions I was given about What I Should Do With My Life. I eventually realized that what everyone told me would make me Happy didn’t seem to work very well, given that almost everyone I spoke to who followed said advice did not seem particularly happy or fulfilled at all. It just wasn’t true! And it wasn’t as though those who were telling me these stories were trying to lie to me—they had just been convinced of flawed narratives themselves, and in failing to notice the delta between those narratives and reality, they were imparting these beliefs onto me (and surely others) without fully understanding why they believed them in the first place.
You can see my essay on why i quit status games to get a sense of what my awakening process was like in that domain, where I realized that the path everyone was prescribing to me did not align with what I wanted out of life. The opposite, in fact! It was going to put me in a trap that would be incredibly hard to get out of, that I would resent being in almost the entire time.
I have my own ambitions, my own definition of a Good Life. I want there to be space for my mind and my soul in what I do. I want to be a mother, to be connected to my feminine nature, to live in full self-expression. I want to create, to write, to think for myself and contribute something only I can to the world. That is why I am doing what I do now. But before I was doing this, I was doing what everyone said Made Sense, was the Right Path. Thankfully, I woke up to my own sense of What Felt Right, and chose something different. I chose what felt true to me. You can do the same!
That is all I want for others: to remember (and reclaim) their ability to think for, and then live for, themselves. This is a critical threshold to pass through if you want to live a creative life—a life that feels effortless, where it feels like you are truly thriving. And when I say ‘live a creative life’, I do not mean Be An Artist in some classical definition of the term, I mean: be original. Be creative with your life. Write your own story. Live in a way you sincerely want to. Don’t bypass your inner signals just to listen to others who want you to think and say things that you are not certain you align with. If something feels off to you, investigate that. Listen to yourself. Your inner knowing should be your compass; not the pressure and fear others manage to instil in you—whether that fear is about having some political opinion, or about wanting to live a life that looks different than what your peers, parents, or even a past version of yourself, might expect. This is your one, precious, finite time on earth. Use it to think (and create) for yourself! I give you permission to do so. Not that you need it :)
Related essays you might enjoy: why i quit status games, ambition as a fingerprint, becoming yourself is a process of reduction, growing pains, on self-trust, comfort. You can also follow my daily thoughts on Twitter.
Learn more about my work outside of these essays…
Coaching: Sign up here to learn more about my 1-1 work designed to help you discover and commit to a life that feels true to you.
Creative Liberation: Sign up here to learn more about my virtual course helping you unblock your creativity, conquer your avoidance, and express yourself freely.
Feel free to let me know (peacefully, kindly) how this lands with you in the comments. As you have probably picked up on from this essay, I am not looking for the comments to become a place of discourse on any particular belief or ideology, but a discussion more broadly about the idea of returning to our soulful nature and creating Art instead of feeling like we need to engage in the never-ending cycle of Commentary. As always, I appreciate you for supporting my ability to think and speak freely here. Thank you for reading!
akchually, all art is political. and your choice of not writing about politics is rooted in your privilege of you not being affected by it. this, is the most political post you have ever written.
I think I understand what you're saying on a surface level, so I'd like to address deeper structural issues with this idea: "Be creative with your life. Write your own story. Live in a way you sincerely want to." For me, living sincerely might mean something like milking goats. But, I have a student load to repay, a boss, a child to raise, and a range of both visible and invisible restrictions that make this idea feel out of reach rich now. Beyond these, there are structural, social barriers (i.e. related to race, gender, socioeconomic class) as well as personal, mental barriers that can make following my true desires significantly harder, if not impossible.
Considering politics in its broadest sense, as "how we collectively decide what to do with our shared resources", it becomes clear that one way to be 'political' is by advocating for and fighting to remove these barriers. One way of to do this is through art.
I also see art as a form of commentary, and I believe all art is political, whether intentional or not, in that it reflects the experience of someone living in a specific time and place. Could we still call something 'art' if it were created by someone who had spent their entire life in a void, detached from the world?