My good pal Seneca once penned this…
(I’ve studied a lot of his work)
“Most human beings, Paulinas,* complain about the meanness of nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, and then because this spell of time that has been given to us rushes by so swiftly and rapidly that with very few exceptions life ceases for the rest of us just when we are getting ready for it…” *A friend of Seneca’s
Granted, Seneca wrote this letter to his buddy Paulinus about 2,000 years ago, and it might as well have been written yesterday about your sorry ass sitting there with all that creative fire burning in your chest, doing absolutely nothing about it…
Feels like a twist of the knife, right? Always getting ready. Always preparing. Waiting for the perfect moment. The perfect setup. A confidence level high enough, where you finally put your art out into the world.
Although right now. The timer is running out and we’re on our way to our final dirt nap.
You’ve got stories burning holes in your brain. Paintings that want to exist. Songs scratching at you. Ideas that make your heart beat while your hands sweat with excitement.
And what are you doing? You’re “getting ready”
You’re waiting until you’re better. Until you have more time. Until you have the right equipment. Until the stars align and your anxiety takes a vacation and your imposter syndrome decides to fuck off for a while.
Now I like Seneca. And he understood something that you don’t…
Life doesn’t give you a practice round. There’s no dress rehearsal. There’s no moment when you suddenly feel “ready enough” to put your work into the world.
You think Van Gogh felt ready when he painted Starry Night?
You think he thought, “Yes, now I’m finally good enough to create something beautiful”?
Hell no. He was broke, mentally unstable, and convinced he was a failure. But he painted anyway.
The alternative was dying with all that beauty trapped inside him, which was worse than any criticism or rejection.
That burning urge you feel? That desperate desire to create and share? Some call it artistic ambition, but we all know that it’s your soul trying to complete its assignment before the timer runs out.
Days spent “getting ready”, are days the day where your art doesn’t get to exist in the world. We don’t need permission, cause those are lost days people don’t get to experience what you have to offer.
You want to know what’s really mean about nature? It’s not that life is short. It’s that life is short and most people waste it preparing to live instead of actually living.
Art doesn’t have to be perfect. Hell, it doesn’t even need to change the world in its current state. It doesn’t have to make you famous or rich or validated by strangers on the internet.
It just has to exist.
The universe plays this really weird joke on us…
While you’re sitting there worried about whether your work is good enough, time is making the decision for you. While you’re waiting to feel ready, you’re getting closer to not having any time left to be ready for anything.
Start today. Not when you feel inspired. Not when you have more skills. Not when you’re less afraid.
Today.
Create something. Share something. Put one piece of your inner world into the outer world and see what happens.
The only thing worse than creating something imperfect is dying with it still trapped inside you.
Seneca knew this. He knew that most people spend their whole lives getting ready to live and then run out of time before they ever actually start.
Don’t be most people.
Your art is waiting. Your audience is waiting. Your future self is waiting.
And time? Time doesn’t give a shit about your preparation schedule.
Get to work. We’re a long time dead.
Stephen Walker.