If all we want is more of you than how could you ever be wrong?
Think about it.
In all your artistic endeavors, what has been asked of you? As a musician, poet, painter, writer, actor, sculptor, designer, novelist, singer ”“ the same has been asked of artists throughout history.
We want more of you in there.
Does this sound familiar? How can you be more honest? Tell us what really happened? What’s your point-of-view about this? This is great but how do you feel about it all? What are you so scared of? Why aren’t you showing us who you are? Go deeper. The real story is what you’re not wanting to tell.
And on it goes. The same theme over and over. More you. Always. In relationships. Art. Creating. To the point sometimes you might want to bang your head up against the wall, because you think you just can’t go any deeper. But then you take a moment and try again. Or you put the novel away for a few months and then revisit it months later with a fresh perspective. Or you hang up your ballet shoes for a couple years and then come back to it with a new passion and insight. Or you digest what your lover says to you and then have an epiphany about where you hold back.
I think Beyoncé’s new music video, Lemonade, demonstrates what we’re talking about here. It can be easy to take the easy way out. And sometimes we do. The over-commercialization of everything gives us a free pass. But she didn’t. She decided to tell us her story as she knows it.
Work that is significant to us ”“ and that which really touches people (and is often controversial because it pushes people’s buttons, hidden fears and prejudices) is when we let our truth out all over the place in our work. It’s personal. Messy. Painful. Cathartic. Ugly. And beautiful.
So do just that. Let all of you hang out in the work. Go to those places you think people can’t take. Or maybe you can’t take it and you use other people as the excuse to hold yourself back. Stop editing yourself and thinking what you have to say has been said before or is uninteresting. If it’s your story and you lived it then it’s going to be interesting. I promise you. And yes, similar stories may have been told again and again, but that’s what makes the universality of you being you and me being me relatable.
It’s all been said and done millions of times before anyway. Except it hasn’t. Because this time it’s through you. You’re the channel. Stop turning it off. Don’t tune into someone’s else’s when yours is more than adequate. Yes, sometimes the reception is so freaking fuzzy and full of static because of fears and doubts and we listen to the naysayers and stop trusting that what we have to contribute is going to be any good. But you have to tune in. To you.
And stop worrying if it’s going to be good. If it’s truthful, it will be good. So just focus on getting more honest.
The more you start doing that you’ll see that life has a way of giving each of us (like Beyoncé ) the opportunity to make our own lemonade out of those lemons.