I practice the opposite, I admit I sometimes confuse convention with quality, then feel bored with myself and blame my talent instead of this fear,
I practice the opposite, I confess it scares me to do the reverse of what’s expected, because the moment I step off the path I lose the excuse of real life certainty,
I practice the opposite. I am asking myself honestly whether I am willing to look strange on purpose — to trust the experiment even when the result has no guarantee and no audience yet,
I practice the opposite. I attempt the contrary even when my footing is uncertain — and I allow the wavering, because I have learned that the unsteady middle is where most real things are actually made…
I question the right way, I admit I often edit myself before I’ve even begun, like I’d rather be approved than to be totally alive,
I question the right way, I confess the standards were never really about the work — they were about controlling what the world was allowed to see of me, before the world decided whether or not I was worth the looking,
I question the right way, there is a particular kind of loss that never announces itself — the surprising thing that never got made because correctness arrived first and took all the air out of the room before the idea could even introduce itself,
I question the right way, I loosen the rules; I let the work breathe; and I stay in the room long enough to find out what it actually wanted to become…
I often venture beyond my safe depth, I admit the repetition itself was never the problem — it was the hollowness that moved in quietly underneath it, the morning I woke up doing the same thing and could no longer remember what any of it was actually for,
I often venture beyond my safe depth, I confess I want excitement without risk, and I’m embarrassed by that, because risk is the entry fee for anything what’s real,
I often venture beyond my safe depth, there is a particular moment in every attempt where the ground disappears beneath you — and I am learning to stay in that moment a little longer before I swim back to the familiar shore,
I often venture beyond my safe depth, I move into uncertainty and still the need to stay present…
I design my own resistance, I admit I’ve tried to solve the same kind of work over and over, because repetition feels efficient, even when it dulls the hell out of me,
I design my own resistance, I confess the loneliness of an original approach is its own particular weight — because alone means there is no reason to hide behind, no collective approval to soften the blow if what I made turns out to be only mine,
I design my own resistance, am I willing to follow a question that pulls me somewhere unfamiliar — past the edge of my own expertise, into the territory I have been circling but never entering,
I design my own resistance, I choose the harder question and begin — because the unfamiliar direction is the only one that still has the power to surprise me, and I refuse to spend the rest of my life making things that no longer have the ability to make me feel alive…
Rules feel safe, and safe feels sleepy,
I’d rather be approved than alive,
Calling it standards, it was fear,
Risk is the entry fee for real,
I choose the harder question and begin,
