As we embark on the new year, so many questions lingered in my head. I had doubts about this blog — this place I share using time and resources to make happen. I began to question its usefulness or relevance. I considered deeply whether I should close it down. I’ve been posting less and less articles (which take many hours to write). More and more of my video analyses/tutorials were being blocked by studios despite the fact that they actually promote their products and I make absolutely no money off of it (actually, I lose money). Furthermore, my teaching notes, demos and drawings were being copied and used by others as if their own. All rather perturbing realities. I also know that closing this website would give me more time to my art projects and to my students/clients who have requested my guidance. I’d also have more time to spend with family and friends, and rest and care for my body. There are so many reasons.
“The more I wrote, the more I became human.” — Henry Miller.
Then the thought came about as to why I created this website in the first place: to share, to inspire, and to help if possible. And like my art, this blog which is now over seven years old (with no social media links or advertising) is part of a journey. And like any journey it has its struggles and doubts but ultimately it’s part of who we are, and in this case who I am, as a teacher, as an artist and ultimately, as a person. Just as drawing is the probity of art, giving is the probity of being genuinely human. I want to live in a better world. I want to see a kinder world, one of beauty and consideration, a human existence in harmony and alignment with nature, rather than dissassociated from it. Art — writing, music, painting, filmmaking, etc — is that act of courage that says yes to living and yes to greater possibilities, possibilities of creating a world more invigorating and more meaningful than the one we’ve created so far. Our legacy lies in not just how we see the world, but how we live it and who we become. Isn’t that the best blueprint we can lay forth for future generations? Or as one of my favourite thinkers noted so duly:
“Men walk as prophecies of the next age.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
So to cut out this blog from existence would be to cut short the journey. Henceforth, I will actually try to increase the rate of my postings, perhaps making them more succinct so that it can be more readily disgested. That will be my compromise. But succinctness might reduce repetitiveness which, as a teacher, I naturally tend towards. After all, art is process and process is a journey of change. It’s also a form of nourishment. Like Homer’s tale, journeys are hard, requiring immense effort but ultimately, incomparably fulfilling. Because to live without art — without expression and connection — and the long trial it implores would be terrible in its shallowness.
“The shortest distance between two points is often unbearable.” — Charles Bukowski