The worst part about Artist’s Block, from what I can derive so far, is that it feels like it’s only prerogative is to hold back the little kid in you or worse, make it disappear altogether.
If I am being honest here - which let’s be real, when am I not whole heart out on an LFE - All I want to do is bust out my nunchucks, watch Rocket Power all day, play with Tech Decks, build forts with my kids, surf and skate and race random people down the middle of the street but NOooooo, here comes the big brick wall created by the societal pressures of capitalism, the never ending hurdles created by unending amounts of worldly greed and shoot worst of all, grown ups.
It’s like a traitorous feeling where the responsibility angel on my shoulder is asking me to suppress the energy, to only give care to the never ending list of responsibilities around me and forget about my childish interests which, actually, make me truly happy. I can’t complain though - I built this monster who wants continuous growth of all sorts - yes, innocently and well-intentioned, mind you - but man does it get exhausting to feed the beast when you are the keeper of the beast and the beast, himself. But hold on, don’t let me get too existential on you, Fam. Let me backpedal before I hit the TD.
At some point, we all start to feel like we’re on life’s treadmill chasin’ that hamster wheel carrot and yea, mostly, no one effin’ cares, but I DO. Here’s the deal, life is too short to not give an extra fuck about the color, to not pick up your coffee with that pinky flipped out, to not dance to the song Thriller, to not have some freaking juju mothafookin mojo. Feel me? If you don’t, please unsubscribe. Took me a minute to find some sensibility in my deep broken well of creativity but just this morning, I took a look in the mirror and although I felt the depressed, stressed, anxious dude hanging around, I saw the little dude staring back at me. The cat wearing his little red shorts, a ninja turtle tank top, a fresh pair of chucks, a clean flat top, a smile from ear to ear and his DNA Skateboard with tensor trucks and bones wheels - young Mikey says, that’s ENOUGH of a time-out, let me spin, coach! No more of this, time to play again. Time to lean in to the ‘difference,’ hence, the whole reason for Imperfects in the first place!
It’s been 35 years straight of grinding to become who I am and I am not about to let go of any of it just because the world needs Responsible Mike, the grown up business guy, to step up and be an artist last. Nah, I am an artist and a people person first who cares for the long term goal which I’ve always seen and defined as lightness, happiness - and I will do any amount of hard work to achieve that cherry on top of my dream fun-fetti cake filled horizon. That said, does the journey always have to be so freaking hard, expensive, stressful and un-enjoyable? Aren’t the rocky roads and gnarly surprise challenges always going to come?
