Cheating

So when I was in university I had to take some english class as a gen-ed. I liked it enough, but the biggest take away was what the professor said about writing, about creating. She said that writing, creating something with words, was supposed to be messy. Yes it was a process, but it should be messy every step of the way. This was news to me, I had always been taught that writing of any sorts was cut and dry; there’s a process, a formula, you must follow when writing anything; there’s always a wrong and a right and this is how you avoid the wrong. Learning this and taking what this professor said to heart temporarily freed me and I expanded this concept to other art forms like music, my major, and to how I perceived art which is a reflection of life. I think life is art…I really do. And I’ve been cheating at it. I’ve been struggling to adhere to these rigid guidelines of what life should look like, and what it should feel like…and that’s cheating. That’s cheating myself of what actual living looks like and feels like. Life is messy and trying to live a life in which there is no mess, trying to skip the ugly/hard/confusing/complex is is trying to live a life void of LIFE. I was dating someone who really loves life and she taught me the importance and thrill of embracing every experience, unattractive and lovely, as part of a tapestry of my life. It’s cheating when one tries to weave their life tapestry without the hardships, their life will be incomplete, holey. And this holey life can’t stand on its own, so I want to stop cheating at life and fill my tapestry with as much life as possible. I want my artwork of a life to be able to stand on its own.