Today, as I sit down at my desk attempting to write something that will matter to someone, I am surrounded by chaos. I can taste it in my coffee, smell it in my sweat, and feel it in the ends of my fingers as they tap the keys, putting words end to end to pull something, anything, interesting, understandable and useful out of the vast, dark, void of chaos. And suddenly, after a millennium in the creative process, I find I have finally come to enjoy the dark, shadowy kiss of chaos.
But I wasn't always like this; and, even now there are days that I will do anything I can to avoid kissing chaos. I will rearrange my space, re order my files, or wander off to a more productive, organized realm of reality TV or the internet. Yes, friends, the internet is organized compared to chaos. For chaos doesn't have happy little hyperlinks or smiley little facebook statuses.
Chaos is a place where good ideas go to die. And without the diligent little fingers of the Creatives, all good ideas will stay there--dead. Without us, nothing interesting will come of the fertile and terrifying darkness beneath the cliffs of chaos. For terror is the fiery fuel of the creative process.
And it is in this fiery fuel that I repeatedly find my self. For in my life as muse, I am constantly called upon by those standing at the edge of the abyss. Often times they don't even know they've called me until they see me standing next to them, overlooking the edge of the greatest leap of faith in their lives.
They may be contemplating divorce, career change, or their first novel. But whatever the calling, I come--cheerfully armed with a grateful heart, a compassionate smile, a curious mind, and a courage-building push off the cliff. For if not for muses, and their pushing and tossing of Creatives into the abyss, many would contemplate the jump for their entire lives. For most of us are not really ready to kiss chaos.
Chaos messes with our human need for order and predictability. We want to wake up each morning and see that the world has not really changed that much. We watch the "news" each morning to make sure that people are still living and dying the same way they've done it for hundreds of years. We really don't want to know what the REAL news is and what it might require of us.
Well, most people don't anyway. But there are some of us (they call us crazy, they call us creative) who are ready for the real news. We eat, drink and breathe new. We think chaos is just about the coolest thing that ever existed. We peer eagerly into the dark, the deep, the shadow! We wake each morning and work to remember our dreams. We step up to the keyboard, the canvas, the romance, and easily make a thousand chaotic choices in the time it takes for a normal person to drive-thru and get their Starbucks.
And it is these people that I live for, that I love, and that I come to when called to the edge. I look forward to your summons, day or night, so that hand-in-hand we can push past the terror, take our leap of faith and sweetly kiss chaos one more time.
xoxox
