When we ourselves are struggling the best course of action can simply be to reach out a hand to another who is also struggling…
Sometimes I find myself up in the clouds, soaring high above in the work of our craft; rising to the occasion. The view is beautiful and elegant in these lofty heights, without stress or need for control, it is free. It seems effortless to fall into the skin of another person and to see the world from their point of view. To find and express the truth in yourself in such raw realism that those watching you glide majestically far up above, cannot help but be moved. These are the moments I think as being ‘wins’ but they are few and fleeting.
I flew too close to the sun.
More often than anything I find myself in the pit of despair; on the edge of quitting this craft. A place where I am questioning myself as an artist and whether this passion that burns inside of me even burns at all. Or has it rather been smothered by my own insecurities and spread outside this heart to engulf in flames all of my artistic creations. I find myself confronted face to face with my principal fear: myself.
I was just trying to be an actor, writer, and artist…but I hate what I play…what I write…what I create.
I’ve been thrown back into the pit I took most of my life to claw out of, or at least thought I had made it out of. I climb these sloped walls of this gravel pit only to slide down just within grasp of the lip. One fateful day I finally claw my way up to the lip to launch myself out, rising up high above this hole. The air is sweeter, colors more vivid, and the view absolutely breathtaking. As I float aloft my eyes drift down to behold the landscape underneath me of pit after pit after pit, for as far as the eye can see. My wings grow heavy from the weight of this burden of artistic growth and as they fail me I descend down into another gravel pit.
I ain’t scared of living…
Yet, I do not falter…I do not give up. For the first time in my life I have realized I am truly not alone. For in that brief moment of soaring up there in those bright clouds I looked down and saw my fellow man. As I descend back down and settle in this new pit I am greeted with the smile and tears of another artist. So that while my eyes long for the clouds above and I grow weak and hopeless from falling back into this desolate landscape, I am pulled up by my fellow artist.
What are we breathing for?
As we struggle together to ascend out of this pit to reach those great heights of our art above we give strength and comfort to each other. That while one might fall a hand is always there, extended, to lift us back up again; to keep climbing. Or even when we are so bone tired that we can only rest in the crux of this hole our eyes can look up and behold those that have made it out to fly high above. Their glorious wings and displays of excellence inspiring motivation within our hearts, lifting us up to climb again. Waiting for the day when we will soar again, and we will soar.
No one is spared the artistic struggle, no one.
– Brandy Hotchner
The wins are not when we find ourselves up in the sky flying freely as Icarus but every day in those pits when we continue to struggle. When we continue fighting and persevering. The wins are in those moments when we hate everything about our work and ourselves, when we’re on the verge of giving it all up, but we don’t. The win is every day we face ourselves and fears, with heartbreak and tears, and press on. I have found it helps immensely to know too, that we are not alone in this struggle.