[Written on a plane coming back from my last trip to Liberia]

I saw a monkey. An honest to God chimpanzee.

It looked at me with these big brown eyes as a child would that was curious about the big black camera in my hand.  It was wearing some sort of baby outfit and was better behaved than a baby would be.  I tried to touch its hand and kept catching myself from thinking it was actually a human.

I wonder if chimpanzees struggle with inspiration and creativity lacks. They probably have it easy. Theres really not much to worry about when you are a chimp. Unless maybe the fact that in the wild you could get eaten. There seems to be a larger population of chimps that are highly catered to than ones that could get eaten. They have bananas carted into their safe dens, and all they have to do for it is act like a monkey.

Sometimes I feel more like a monkey than a person. I do what I’m told, I eat when they feed me, I put on a show.  It’s degrading and comfortable at the same time.

I don’t think we are supposed to live like monkeys. I think actually we are supposed to be living as kings.

Not like the kings of the past that raped and pillaged and yadda yadda, but as kings that were put in charge of things.  Kings that cared just as much for the wellbeing of those things as they do themselves.  Kings that took up the responsibility they’ve been given and use their gifts and talents to better everything around them. I think I’ve been living like a lazy king for awhile now. Everything has been provided, I really don’t have fears of being invaded, I sit in a throne and eat chicken legs. Instead of taking advantage of my war-time-peace I just kinda sit around and wait for the next thing to be handed to me, while saying to myself “It’s always going to be this easy.”

I don’t know how to change. I’d like to change. I can see how if I changed I’d be a happier person.  My problem is that I’m stuck in an unchanged body that has severe resistance to betterment. All the forces in the world are aimed at keeping me still. Keeping me stagnant.  Keeping me from LIVING.  I’ve been loosely reading The War of Art.  It talks about a force that is “out there” that has the sole purpose of keeping people from being their creative selves, keeping them from changing, bursting out of the seams of a boxy indifference and COMPLETELY changing shapes.  The author calls it “resistance”.  An interesting concept, and in my case I come up against “resistance” daily. Usually it’s in the form of, oh i don’t have anything meaningful to create right now, or…oh i’m afraid it won’t be that good, or here’s a big one for me…it’s EASIER for me NOT to create.  Hell yeah its easier.  I guess it’s laziness, or just the fear of doing something difficult. Either one is lame.

What if, everything you touched turned to gold but for it to work you had to run 5 miles.

Would you just be like, “Well I don’t feel like running today so I’ll just deal with not having gold.”  You’d actually end up being a pretty good runner, pretty quick.  If we KNEW that our creative effort was going to be a win, we’d probably put the effort into it.  Usually we DONT know.  Thats the challenge, thats the game we get to play.  Will this win, will anyone care, will I even like it, will it be a complete waste of time?  How do i get to the point of enjoying the hard part?

The hazy misty stuff that seems to always be crowded in my mind does it’s job well.  I can’t clearly see my thoughts, so instead of doing something about the haze and open a window I just kinda take a nap on the couch. It’s easier.

Note to self: Live like this

Not like this.