“I should have known that somethin’ man-made couldn’t make me /
I say I’m makin’ music, or is music what creates me?”
Witt Lowry, Debt, Nevers Road
Beyond the Quote (208/365)
Nothing man-made makes the man. It’s what the man makes that makes the man. What somebody else made is a reflection of them. You obtaining what they made doesn’t make you into any kind of different person at all. It might reveal the type of person you are but it doesn’t change who you are. To understand this is to understand the power in making and creating. To forget this is to forget and never realize who you are to yourself or the world.
The difference between obtaining and creating is the difference between the customer and the entrepreneur; the spectator and the performer; the reader and the author; the fan and the musician; the born-rich and the earned-rich. The actions of the entrepreneur, performer, author, musician, and earned-rich are the very strokes of the paintbrush that create the piece of art that is their life. The life that others, who are merely holding their paintbrush, marvel and remark about.
It was through the relentless attempts at launching a successful product/ service that the entrepreneur shaped their fate. It was through the blood, sweat, tears, and grueling practices that the performer found their place on the stage. It was through the countless hours of grappling with words and staring at blank screens that the author wrote the story that found people’s hearts. It was through the tiresome hours of rehearsing and soul searching that the musician found their voice that made it’s way to people’s souls.
The consumer, on the other hand, may have resonated with and been inspired by the works of the creators—but it won’t be until they start creating themselves that their identity can be revealed. It is as though a person’s identity is a mound of clay sitting atop a table. They can go around and look at, be inspired by, and resonate with as many other clay creations as they want—no amount of spectating is going to change their mound of clay that’s plopped on their table. They need to sit at their work station, place their hands on the clay, and start actively manipulating it before anything can happen to it.
To forget this is to never have moulded your clay—your life—into anything at all. It is to have left your mound of clay sitting amongst other mounds of clay untouched. Not shaped, moulded, or revealed. This is the ultimate travesty. The idea that not touching your clay is better in some way than attempting to shape it (out of fear that something that might turn out “wrong” or “imperfect”). But, this couldn’t be more backwards. Life is not a spectator sport. Life is supposed to be messy and filled with mistakes and corrections. Not even trying is to have wasted the incredible gift of life that you have been blessed with. To leave an un-moulded blob of clay behind is to leave behind a life lacking impact, influence, or legacy.
Because how will you ever know what you’re capable of moulding until you start actually moulding? How can you discover who you are if you never express anything that you have inside? Memorizing and merely regurgitating factual or pre-produced information does nothing for your identity. You need to remix. You need to take everything that you’ve learned in your life and mend it all together into a unique form of expression that can only come from you. THAT is how you reveal your identity and claim your space in the world.
This doesn’t mean you have to become an entrepreneur, performer, author, musician, or otherwise successful creator in order to discover who you are. It does, however, point to the fact that creative pursuits are what ultimately make and reveal you to yourself and others. There is no other way. So, try incorporating more art into your life. Find ways to creatively express what you have inside. Whether it be through paint, words, music, business, design, martial arts, education, content creation, etc. Start moulding away at your clay with your full life force. Make a masterpiece. Make your life a masterpiece. Make your life a masterpiece by making masterpieces all along the way.
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