A Foot in Both Worlds

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.
-Anaïs Nin

Life is the fuel of creativity. As artists, we take our life experiences and transform them into works to communicate to others. We live life, and then we relive it as we create.

I find that in my own experience, I swing from extremes of extroversion and introversion. That is, I go through phases where my soul yearns to be out and about, gathering experiences. Then I go through phases where I only want to go hermit and retreat to my cave to process everything.

I would be lying if I said that I didn't find this kind of bipolar social life frustrating. Sometimes my desires and instincts are at odds. I may really want to go out, but instead, I stay in to work and create. Other times, I may have a deadline looming and need to work, but my mind is out in the fields staring at clouds.

I've often wondered, in the past, if instead of living twice, we actually just live two half-lives. However, I think the reality is that we tend to live more aware and more fully than the majority of our species who sleepwalk through life, paying little attention to the details of our existence.

Recently, I started walking to the Red Line el train from my apartment to get to and from work. This wasn't because of any sort of need or desire to increase my fitness level or to save money on CTA transfers. (I live a mile from the Red Line, but I live 3 blocks from the Brown Line and the bus could just as easily take me to the Red Line.) The weather was nice, the sun was out, and I really just wanted to walk.

Have you ever just marveled at how awesome it is to walk? We usually just take this for granted, going so far as to save ourselves the "hassle" of walking by driving our cars for a mile trip. But walking, though, feels so present, so real. The cool air breezing past you, the sun warming your back. The smell of cut grass and burning charcoals from backyard grills. If I had taken my camera with me, I could've found dozens of things to photograph that were interesting to me.

How many people could say the same? I'm not knocking other people; I know that everyone has things going on in their heads that's taking their attention. Hell, I get preoccupied a lot thinking about projects, women, whatever.

But I think that as artists, we tend to live so fully in the moment, that we take in more of life than a lot of people do. We have to take that downtime just to catch our breaths and empty ourselves so we can do it again. So, we live life sometimes in the moment, extroverted and then we relive it through our work, introverted.

A foot in both worlds.