Though I can, and do, respond in positive ways, making lifestyle and dietary changes, these do not alter the fact that this body of mine's health and functioning has deteriorated. And that deterioration, in the longer term, I can can do very very little about. It goes with the territory of being mortal. So am I just indulging in feeling helplessly morose about all this? Is this self pitying worth the time that I give it? Or is it that the whole subject of our own demise is something we must allow ourselves to be in touch with and allow ourselves to grieve for.
A deeper recognition of the finite nature of life, has made time and what I do with it, feel increasingly a valuable priceless thing. One not to be squandered, wasted on fripperies, or focused on things that seem neither important nor life enhancing. What to make of my retirement, of the time I have left before I no longer have the capacity to care one way or another? It appears the more anxious and tightly I hold on to counting the beats of time, the more life itself slips through these expectant fingers of mine.
When another day passes without achieving much, with little but the practicalities of my health dealt with. I question myself whether I'm making the most of my days. My mood becomes bleaker and more overshadowed. Indeed, there ought to be more time for artistic endeavours, but that seems to either fritter itself away in my hands or find I'm never in the mood for it. Despite the best laid plans. I have to acknowledge, it has forever been thus. I've often been found running scared of my own artistic self expression.
It may be beneficial to reflect on how things are, or have been. Though if you are looking positively forward, however provisionally, at some point you need to act, to make changes, or life will only serve up more of the same. Things feel worse because of all the perceived dilly dallying. As soon as I actually put ideas to paper, any mood or trough of despond immediately lifts.
Looking back at life, I catch the drift of its achievements, it's joys, its best bits, its mistakes, its missed opportunities, the significant ommissions. Why did I do that and not this? I inherited through my upbringing a primarily practical focus to life. To deal with these before anything else, be self motivated, keep yourself afloat. If I have any regrets it's that I often let practical considerations continually overrule the more spontaneous artistic desires for self expression I had. I repeatedly let that part of my character down. Quite often because I felt the risk, I felt scared of failure, of the bottom being knocked out of my misplaced confidence.
Not providing creative urges with sufficient time or expression, is a type of self betrayal. In those moment of despondency I'm put in touch with the rubbed raw emotional cost of that. Though it bears the bruises, self betrayal will always hit back. After all, it's been kept isolated in a locked room for months on end, its in a stroppy mood. How else could it respond? Wouldn't you be depressed?
Without an artistic project on the go of some sort I do overtime become like a dried out leaf, curled up and brittle. My soul shriveling up inside. That I am only partially retired, has its benefits and it's demerits with regard to keeping busy and engaged. There is theoretically more time for artistic pursuits, but it is just as easy to let my days be consumed by the practical day to day concerns as it was when I worked full time. The demands of the intray that never quite gets empty enough for artistic self expression to find space.
I used to think when I retired then there would be all time in the world. Then I could devote time to all the things I love doing but rarely found the time for. Say not so sir. Retirement is not a time to reinvent yourself in, but to be more generously kind towards what has become hardwired in you, there are always limits, there are still external constraints. The range of what is possible, may no longer have the breadth and scope of ones youth. But, nonetheless, you work with whatever you find there is. And there is also the need to pare back what you expect yourself to do. Without the constraints of daily work there really should be time for being more fully soulful.
I find the need to step back, to hold even creativity lightly. If I want it to be always stunningly successful then I have not understand the territory I am in. You have to be open to it failing to launch, to create an absolute mess. Sometimes the creative ideas you have will be rubbish ones, and this will be revealed only at the precise moment you put paint to paper. One's artistic imagination is a beautifully pure thing only when its left unsullied by contact with the reality of expression. Creativity at its best, is to enjoy the encounters with the unexpected surprises and modes of expression. To take all the delight you can in giving them an earthly form. Withholding from engaging with this, has never been a choice that has ever been consequence free. You just have to do it and find out if it will float or sink this time. Its a rare artist who doesn't have a phase where everything turns out crap. And if they say they don't, then check their dustbins or fire grates..
Whilst I say this to myself, and oh how drearily familiar it all is, I often wonder whether I'm really listening. In the past, these difficult conflicted turbulence's in my responses to being creative, led to a view that maybe it would be better for all concerned if I left them entirely alone. Not touch them with a barge pole. That perhaps I'd be more content with myself and life, if I never allowed my imagination to go anywhere near being expressed. It was as though by refraining from touching an old sore, it all would heal up. Such are the sort of delusions I've sometimes chosen to live by.
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