Beavers Don't Give a Dam

Warning! Rambling Ahead!... I warned ya...

Insanity. Absolute and utter chaos. What day is this? What year? What month? Have you ever been so friggin' busy that you can't get a single thing done? Maybe that's not really true. I tend to be in a busy cycle without end. There's no time to relax and sit back and admire the amount of work that I have been churning out on a daily basis. No time to breath. No time to rest. THAT is where the feeling of emptiness comes from. Not from a lack of results. The real problem is a lack of time.

An artist friend of mine and I had a meeting this week in which he reminded me of some very important things. Hanging out at his studio, he reminded me that we (not only as artists) but as human beings possess the ability to create our own lives. It's true. I somehow over the past 2 years lost sight of this important piece of information. It is possible to say no to people but then what? I have been in a constant state of panic for most of the past year. Why? Because everything is so scheduled and regimented. I hate it. I work so much that when I lie down at night to sleep, I feel guilty. I can't sleep. I don't know the last ime I slept well.

There's been a lot of personal problems in my life that I have been "dealing" with by piling on more and more work. Dealing is in quotations because, of course, I honestly haven't been. There's an almost animalistic instinct kicking in. It's friggin' consuming me. Maybe I should get a will. I want very much to leave instructions for the following words to be left on my headstone:

"In this World, If You Can't Be Happy... Be Busy"

My 5 year old daughter said something to me the other day. It broke my heart. Screw philosophers. If you want some real truth, ask someone little. She told me that she's never been on vacation. She hasn't. She's five. That means I haven't taken a break in over 5 years. My job is a hamster wheel. I need a break.

The truth is, you have to make time. Apologies to Albert Einstein, but you can make time. I remember reading something written by one of Norman Rockwell's children once. The story was about how on Christmas morning they had to tear him away from his studio to open presents. Sad. Dam. Damn.