Back to New Year’s

Motivations are slippery little things, and they have a habit of changing when one isn’t looking. Noble ones rarely lurk at the heart of even our noblest actions. 

I started writing this blog as a way of talking to myself – to record truths I needed to hear and store them in a place where I would be periodically reminded. Somewhere along the way, this morphed into the desire to help others. I wanted to write articles that didn’t just help me where I needed it, but changed readers where they needed it. 

This may sound more noble, even less selfish, but it came with unforeseen baggage. 

I began looking for where others needed to change, not myself. I worked in the speck removal business instead of attending to the plank in my own eye. My job is not to change others, and I couldn’t do so even if it was. A judgmental attitude was cropping up in my writing, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to remove it from the syntax (turning “you need to” into the less combative “we need to,” but meaning the same thing). 

I was growing less satisfied with my writing, but didn’t know why. I was also increasingly concerned with how many people would read it, like it, share it, and affirm it. The more I wrote with the goal of helping people, the more I felt they owed it to me to be helped. 

At one point, I found myself writing an article with the soul of a Tony Robbins motivational speaker (which I can’t stand), and the backdrop of COVID-19 (which I’m sick of hearing about). I really hated the piece and worried it wouldn’t be widely embraced, which was my first clue. The only arguments I had for publishing it, was it was well-written and might help some people stop complaining and be productive.

This wasn’t good enough. I am not a life coach, therapist, critic, or even a philosopher. I am an artist, and artists should not be preachers. We are all annoyed by the patronizing self-importance of a sermon masquerading as a work of art: a Christian film full of ecclesiastical tropes, an anti-gun statue, a political song. 

Of course, the best art is spiritual and even political in nature, with the ability to deeply touch and impact people. But only because it is first and foremost a reflection of truth. The goal of the artist is not to change people, but to reflect the truth which alone can change people. 

My motivations have changed and I am changing them back. I’m not writing for you, though you can listen in. This is a place to reflect the truth I need to hear, and if it changes anyone, I hope it changes me first.

J.

April 7, 2020