I'm feeling like there is a spiritual simplicity that lives on the left, just down the road from convolution. Like Charles Darwin said; ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
My own ignorance stems from some simple lacking in knowledge. Or acceptance of knowledge really. I've been trying to simplify my life lately. The last few years have been terribly complicated. Very dramatic, and not very conducive to truth or to living with any kind of consistancy or simplicity. I'm not entirely sure where this need for simplicity is coming from? Perhaps I've just gotten tired of the grind. Or maybe the grind has tired of me.
I've spent the last nine weeks in a heavy contemplation about what my vocation is. Who precisely I am. I've asked people what they believe I should do with my life, where they see me; how they see me, what to do next, etc.
Swimming is this morass of "Lake Shawn" has left me pretty open to new ideas and experiences. I'm finding that life, love and family are very different from where I've been living them. I've found that I'm pretty damn ignorant and sorely confident in my ignorance. I'm finding a thirst for knowledge, ideas and experiences I didn't know was there.
I've also found some simple moments, and at this point they are only moments, in which I find that I like myself, hell, even love myself. I didn't for a long time honestly. I also didn't see that coming at all. I've realized some miraculous things about myself.
For example I've found that I'm an artist. I paint, draw and act; at times I've been a screenwriter, a poet, a filmmaker, director and animator. So yeah, obviously I'm an artist. But more than that I've found that my approach to life and it's problems, it's passions, it's living, are in my case very much artistic.
Frankly, I sometimes believe that if I had it do it over again I probably would have chose fireman, cowboy or astronaut instead of "artist". Being an artist is preposterous. It's "blue collar work" as someone I admire said to me recently(although I'm paraphasing because she actually said "acting is blue collar work"). Not that there is anything wrong with blue collar work, mind you. But I chose "artist" or it chose me. Sensitive and aware. Feeling and cruel. That's what it gives you, that's what it takes from you. If you are an artist and are reading this you know exactly of what I'm speaking of. It's not easy, it's often not rewarding. It's something I can't define at this point.
I believe what I've really gotten out of my experiences over the last few weeks and really the last few years is that I don't want a complicated overdramatic life any longer. I'm embracing my artist. I'm good at being an artist. Some might even say great. I'm good at being a person; I'm good at being a friend, a dad, a husband, a lover, a man. It's part and parcel of being an artist. I live in a daily passion for life, for justice, for change. It's not a bad place to live.
Perhaps acceptance of myself was all that was stopping me all these years. That and maybe just missing the simplicity, beauty, joy and love all around us.
That seems simple enough for today.