Hi everybody, welcome back to the Artist Tao podcast and we're gonna move on to our next principle. Fight discouragement. Some people around you will want you to fail. Your success may reveal their shortcomings. You cannot allow this to alter your path.
Yes. What do you think about that? This has been true consistently for over 30 years to me, and that is that there... I don't think it's intentional with most people that they, you know, there's a lot of people that have cheered me on and been very supportive over the years. And so I don't think it's intentional, but for reasons that they may not even know. People can sometimes discourage you from pursuing what it is that you wanna do as a creative person because my belief is that it reveals something in themselves that they're not happy about, of choices they've made. And so it's...
There's that whole description of the bucket of crabs and one's trying to climb out and the rest pull them down. It's a whole thing. So I think that that's.
observably true that people can do that to you. And you really have to fight that because it's very easy to resort to what's comfortable and just stay in your lane. And most people do that. Yeah. Would you say from when we say art is love, right? And have you ever heard the term that
love brings up everything unlike itself. And so if you're a creator, an artist, and you're bringing forth love, basically, right, when you say art is love, love is eternal, that to me means if you're bringing forth that love in the form of art, that perhaps it does shine a light on those places maybe that need some light. Yeah, and that's...
That's one of those things that, you know, you're, you're stirring the pot by creating artwork because it does connect and resonate with people. And the result of that, um, isn't always going to be warm and fuzzy and accolades. Sometimes it's going to agitate people. Even if the artwork itself is innocuous, it, it may challenge somebody who's engaging with it in a way that they don't really even understand. And then they turn that agitation towards you in the form of discouraging you from continuing. Yeah, so I would imagine it's important to remember not to take on that whatever they're giving out to you. It's important to really understand who you are as a person, to some extent, so that you're not taking on that.
Criticism in a way that would send you down a place for not creating anymore or something like to stifle that, like you're saying here, fight discouragement. Yeah, and it's very easy to do because... It's easy to do which part? It's easy to internalize that. And that's one of the biggest challenges of staying on track, of pursuing whatever your creative expression is, is staying out of your own head and then keeping other people out of your head. Would that be the pro tip? I don't know what you mean. Like what is your pro tip for staying out of your head? Like to stay on course and to fight discouragement? What would be some highlights of things that you do that keep you steady in that? In my case, that I would say is daily meditation practice returns me to a point where it's very easy if I don't do that to kind of drift and then kind of get caught back up in the mire of my own overthinking or allowing other people's thoughts to alter my course. Whereas if I'm disciplined and regular with my meditation practice, that's that puts me back in touch with the real nature of things and of who I am in this world and how I can bring that expression out. So that works for me. I suppose other people might find different ways to do that and exercise or other things as well. But for me, it's the meditation that puts me back in the middle.
So staying centered.
Yeah, for sure because at the core of this particular principle is the fact that the discouragement is going to come and it can come from within your own mind, it can come from others minds and words and actions and if you're not prepared to push back against that, it will win.
And I think that's, we see it so often where people are passionate about something, people wanna do something and then all of a sudden they kind of disappear from the scene and they're working in a coffee shop or at their uncle's accounting firm or whatever because they just, I don't think it's a lack of commitment as much as they, underestimated the amount of fight that you'd have to face. You know, there's that cliche, if everyone was, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it kind of thing. And you know, it is, it's something you've got to kind of prepare yourself and steal yourself for that you're going to deal with challenges if you decide to do something that's out of the norm. Any kind of creative pursuit is certainly that.
I would imagine too, you know, when you're creating art, it does touch people. It touches people's hearts. And I don't know that sometimes as an artist, maybe you're not prepared for that or you kind of, you maybe don't, you're making art from your heart, right? And you're not attached to certainly how it will affect somebody else. And I would think, would you agree with that? Yes. And that can be very, um, can take a person off guard because...
If you're so much in the head space of the creating of the work and then I want people to engage with it so I'm going to have a show or I'm going to put out music or whatever you're doing, you can get so lost in that that you're not really addressing the fact that you can create this connection with people that is genuine and heartfelt.
And that really can throw you off guard where when you see it and I've experienced this where I was in Ireland doing a project and someone had approached me specifically about this book, the first edition of it. And, you know, it had been, I think it was, you know, six years since that had come out in 2008. And I was just completely caught off guard because the person was very enthusiastic and was like, Hey, I loved your book. And I didn't, it took me a few minutes to even register. What are you, what are you talking about? Yeah. But, but you know, to the, to them, it was, it was like really important and meaningful that, you know, Hey, I'm in Ireland. I live here and I read your book, you know, several years ago and now you're here. And, you know, um, so yeah, that can surely catch you off guard or you don't even really, you get so wrapped up. Like I was so wrapped up in, I'm out here to do this project with one of my favorite bands, the Cranberries growing up, you know, and all this stuff. And you totally can lose sight of the fact that there's individuals out there that are engaging with something that you've done or doing that has nothing to do with like, Hey, look at how cool this is. I'm getting to do this high profile thing.
So what keeps you humble?
Yeah. That's a good question. And I don't know. I think a person has to work at maintaining humility, not taking yourself too seriously. And I think for myself, what helps me catch myself when I'm feeling a little too full of myself, which everyone does at times, is...
Like we're here for a very short time. And without that connection that we create with other people, this is a meaningless period of time. And so if you're just pursuing wealth or you're pursuing fame or you're pursuing all the things that everyone knows are shallow things, if that's your main focus, you know, 70, 80, 90 years on the planet, that's a blip. And if I remind myself of that, then none of the things that I've had the privilege of doing really even matter that much compared to, you know, the connection. I think a lot about that scene in the Art Is love, Nepal documentary that we shot where I'm in the upstairs with the papermaker and he's serving tea and we're having that great conversation. And, you know, I told Dan and Sarah this multiple times, you know, after we filmed that, like that interaction to me was like surpassed everything that we did out there and what we were able to film and the story we were able to tell about the craftsmen out there, that event, that connection with him in that conversation would have never occurred if it wasn't for the larger project involved, but that had more meaning than just about anything else that we experienced out there to me. So what you're saying to stay humble is everybody, each of us making meaning, giving meaning to what we're doing in our life, our purpose, meaning and purpose. Only we can determine that really.
Each of us giving meaning. I'm not sure. I think you're saying the same thing. It's just you're saying it in a different way. But...
Yeah, I heard you, I asked you about staying humble and you said about remembering the meaning or the meaning of what you're doing. And so I was just reflecting that is that what you're saying is that we each give our own, we each give our own meaning to what we're doing. We give ourselves a meaning and purpose. Like we identify that in ourselves. Somebody doesn't give that somebody doesn't say, well, you're an artist so you can do that. Yes. I think what I meant more though was just, you know, checking yourself and looking at.
Like so much of the things that we insist are important aren't important at all. And we all know, you've heard these stories of the rich guy on his deathbed and he wishes he had spent more time with family and friends, that kind of thing. And those have almost become this cliche thing where everyone kind of rolls their eyes like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that is, that is true. If you get wrapped up in the opportunities that come your way that you're allowed to go do and participate in, and it's very easy to do. It's very easy to get into that head space of like, well, look at this, I must be doing something important. And...
But we all get sick and we all, you know, there's all, we all have a, an ending and pending different rates according to where you are in the timeline, but we all have that. And that's helpful to me to keep myself out of the head space of like, wow, I got to do X, Y, Z. That must mean like, I'm pretty cool. Yeah. You've reached this thing. Yeah, because it all goes away. There's no such thing as legacy and people delude themselves on that too, I think, where you're going to make something that lives long after you.
You know, there are artists that have succeeded in that sense. But even that, what's the point? You know, like we've mentioned this before, but Van Gogh, if I'm remembering correctly, I don't think he sold one painting in his lifetime. And now he's long gone and lived a very struggled life creating that artwork that no one was really able to engage with in his lifetime. He's gone.
And now there's billionaires who are selling his paintings back and forth like trading cards. It's bizarre. And it doesn't change the fact that he struggled with the things he struggled with and he had the relationships he had. He had a close relationship with his brother and probably terrible relationships with other people because he was kind of volatile. But, In the end, once you're gone, what does that matter? And conversely, I see like, you know, there's pop stars and things that get really famous for music or actors or things like that, that, you know, they're notorious for living like this kind of off the rails, the botched life and everything. And, you know, you hear stories of ones OD’ing and everything else. Like they're clearly not happy living in that bubble of, of fame. So I think it's just important to look at things like humility. That is part of the fight aspect too, of with the fighting discouragement is also like fighting those other things that come along that can rob you of happiness and joy and you know, the things in relationships that do contribute something good for you.
It's kind of what we talk about the eat or be eaten. Yeah, I like that phrase a lot. Yeah. When you had, how old were you when you had that gallery or at the coffee shop in San Antonio?
I had to have been either 20 or 21, I think. And what would you tell your 21 -year -old self in regards to this principle, fight discouragement? Some people around you will want you to fail. Your success may reveal their shortcomings. You cannot allow this to alter your path. What would you say?
None of it matters.
Yeah, none of it matters.
It's the process of creating artwork, this is my opinion, the process of creating it and the process of sharing it that matters. And the outcome doesn't matter, the historical milestone that you get to put on your little notepad of life, that doesn't matter.
And the discouragement that you may inject into your own mind, others may inject into your own mind, doesn't matter. Because if you continue and you continue to expand how you express yourself and how you share that, then you're building connections and relationship with other people. And...
I really like the concept in non-dual Eastern philosophy of you're the ocean, you're not the wave. And I think it's that. We could debate for hours on what this all means, our experience of life and our being conscious beings and all of these things, but at the end of the day, we're where this little blip on the radar and during that blip we can make a contribution and the only contribution that has meaning is connection to the rest of consciousness and the rest of humanity as we know it. So all of these other things don't matter. And I wish I could give myself that advice at 20, 21 years old because at that age I was so... I was so wrapped up in it had to matter because of other things I was years and years away from addressing in my life. And so there was this, I think mindset that... that if I was able to accomplish this, then it invalidated all of these other things that were just personal struggle things that I had to work through. Those things wouldn't be important if I would just accomplish this. Those things wouldn't be a hurdle anymore. They wouldn't be things I'd have to fix. They wouldn't be things I'd have to confront. This would fix it.
And so actually I was gonna say this or ask this question and you just touched on it. So when we're saying fighting discouragement, we were talking before, it's not just outside discouragement, people, you know, whatever process they're in because of the artwork or what you're creating. There's also the internal discouragement. So what I heard you say was like, it was almost like you do have to listen to those internal things or work through them.
In a sense, like you can't, you're not just not ever addressing them. Like what I heard you say was that whatever you weren't addressing, you were saying that this had to happen or you had to do this. It had to make a difference because. Yeah, but I think that's more a life thing than an art thing. I think that's just, that stuff's going to come get you. And again, eat or be eaten.