What are you doing this for?

Sunday musings...

Every so often, the question stops us...

What am I doing this for? And what is "this" to you?

The question SHOULD stop us - it gives us an opportunity to re-evaluate, to re-discover, to become more conscious of what we do and why we do it.

What ARE you doing?

The answers are endless...and as diverse as the human beings doing!!!

Are you singing? Are you studying? Are you exploring? Are you discovering your best self? Are you pursuing a career? Are you trying to say something? Are you developing craft? Living artistry? Pursuing a career?

Are you an artist? A performer?

Can you summon your talent at will?

Do you want longevity? Do you want artistic success? Material success?

Why do you do what what you do?

Seems like a simple question...but the answers can be very complex and intricate. Thus, it is important, from time to time to really sit down and ask the questions, and begin to discover the answers.

When you ask yourself - don't edit your answer! Your answer should be organic and real. It may surprise you, it may shock you, it may disturb you. It may illuminate you, it may clarify you, it may expose you!

Not having an answer is also an answer. It is another point of departure. Any answer, or inability to answer is a point of departure. It is an opportunity to discover truth.

Those who do not ask questions, cannot reveal the truth about where they are, who they are, why they are and what they are doing. If you do not ask questions, you have nothing to say. Most times, the questions are more daunting than the answers! Yet, the answers come when the questions are real.

As we enter the dreaded "blue" month of the year - when we'd all rather be hibernating - I have found this time of year is an opportunity to ask this prime question in honesty and without any agenda other than truth-seeking:

What am I doing this for? What are YOU doing this for?

What is your FIRST response? How does it make you feel physically? emotionally?

Can you breathe? Do you tighten up? Can you respond at all? What happens?

If we cannot ask questions of our self, we cannot ask questions of our craft. We cannot find truth or reveal truth, nor can we be honest if we cannot discover honesty.

Do you put a time frame on what you are doing? Why? Do you just go with the flow? Why?

No question is out of bounds, and no answer is wrong. Answers need to find their honesty - otherwise it is hiding. And ultimately, you are only hiding from yourself.

If you have something to say as an artist/performer, no one will hear you until you are willing to become honest with yourself about the questions you need to ask yourself!

If you are not about artistry and can be honest about that - do it! Know yourself! To yourself be true and TRUTHFUL.

If you feel you need to hide your truth, why? It is your answer that will reveal your truth.

Allow the questions to emerge from the answers you are revealing. From the physical and emotional and psychological sensations you are experiencing...

Allow the truth of you to reveal itself through you.

Converse with yourself. Look into that mirror of you and really SEE who is there and why he/she is there. RESPOND to her/him! Discover the complexities, claim the dualities, accept what seems to be oppositions in self...and begin to speak truth to self by knowing WHY.

Or simply by claiming "I don't know why - and now my work begins!"

What are you doing this for?

Only YOU can answer this for YOU. The rest is details.