Burning, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
How do you walk your talk? I’ve been thinking about what that means. I can write, paint, draw until I’m blue in the face. How does it change anything? How is it making a difference in the way I live my life?
A wise person once told me, it doesn’t matter what a person says — pay attention to what they do. The true measure of a person is in their actions. If someone shows you who they are – believe them.
Choosing to become a writer and artist has changed the way I look at the world. I dive for details; I poke at the underbelly; I take risks; I notice things that are tossed aside, hidden, secret. Other writers and artists are doing the same.
I have the greatest respect for those who form community, who give back what they’ve learned. I’m sitting here writing my butt off everyday, but who cares? How am I giving to the local community, my neighborhood, to family and friends.
It doesn’t matter what I learn, how educated I am, how many degrees I’ve earned, how much money I make. What matters is how I apply what I’ve learned to my daily life – how I walk the talk.
Does my word mean anything? Does the art mean anything? Do I show up to honor my commitments? If I make a mistake, do I admit it, offer apology? If I slip away for a while, disappear, do I come back? Or do I abandon.
What about my commitments to myself? I can put a structure together on paper – time to do my art, to work on my book, to read other writers. If I don’t follow through, live the structure, it’s not worth the weight of the paper it’s written on.
I can get out and teach other people about writing. And about the value of the Arts to a community. But if I’m not living what I am teaching, who’s going to listen? Who’s going to believe me?
How do you show up for others. Has writing changed the way you interact with your family, friends, students. Do you share knowledge and credit, model what you’ve learned? Or hoard information for yourself.
There are those who go to the opposite extreme — giving themselves away, until there is nothing left. Do you overgive or caretake? Do you know when you are depleted, exhausted, need time alone, downtime to replenish the well.
How do you walk the talk? Is it by going to writing retreats, taking risks with your art or writing, writing in a group, submitting your work? Do you support libraries, rally public funding for the Arts, frequent museums, encourage your kids to do art. Or is it as simple as showing up to the page, at the canvas, or with your camera, burning to create.
So many questions. I’m not looking for answers, only the sharing of ideas. Why do the Arts matter in this world. What does it mean to walk your talk?
…be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, 1934
-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
-related to post, W. H. Murray – Providence Moves Too
redravine.wordpress.com 