There is a deep, crevice-like pain that binds with the difficult decisions artists must make in life.  To follow our passion and purpose, artists are constantly asking ourselves, especially at pivotal times in our journey and career “Must I create this art?” 

As Rainer Maria Rilke reminds us from 1903: “This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.” (Rilke, Rainer Maria and Kappus, Franz Xaver. Letters to a Young Poet in an edition by M. D. Herter Norton (translator). (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1993).

But what about the dream, the dreamers? How much does society depend on the artists, innovators, and creators? These experts in their field use their art to touch the soul, to help humanity endure the rain, thunder, and lightening that life will, at some point, come our way.

In today’s world of stress, violence, commercialism and distant dreams, we can very, very easily talk ourselves into sensible rationality. We can make our decisions based on all sorts of logical proofs. We hold on or search for the safety net, the tent of security for our futures and our lives. 

The dreamers carry fear, fear that we won’t be able to live a happy, carefree life. The fear that the stakes are too high. The fear that we won’t be supported by our friends, family, jobs or even new people that come into our lives. We fear that there will be too many bumps in the road, too many challenges. In other words, we fear that our art isn’t enough, that the fire in our hearts may not be enough, that we aren’t enough.

There can be two truths. We can be passionate, called to be artists, and we can be terrified of the risks involved. This is one of the most difficult things about artistry; more difficult than creating the art itself! The knowing, taking, enduring, carrying, and living through the risks, fear, adversity, challenges, and sacrifices that may and likely will come our way.

But I ask us, artists: What if? 

What if you don’t take the risk? What if you choose safety, security, logic? Will you, in fact, be satisfied? Will the soul still yearn to make, create, and express your art? The fire burning within is there for a reason. We may never know it, but if we do not follow, we will be full of a life of “what if’s,”  and “If only I had’s”….

There is a blessing of integrity to be an artist and also a burden of the constant weight of life on our shoulders to follow art, support it, and live it. So, I dare to ask you, artist, in the dark of night, if the one life you have is on the path that you know your heart calls you to follow? And, be well with the unknown, the hopes, the faith, the fear that we may carry indefinitely, but assuredly in our truth.