Struggles with Fame and Failure Through the Creative Process

The Creative Process can be mysterious or it can be predictable. Or it can be both at the same time.

I struggle with this tangled multiplicity daily in my recent push to publish every day.

On the one hand, I reach out and I see the mystery everywhere.

Connections float in an out, leaving hints and touches of significance everywhere in my path.

Then the other hand, clenched and creased, I fumble through the patterns of every fork in fortune’s path.

I fumble with fear of failure.

I fumble with fear of fame.

I fumble between these dualities; fame and failure, all the while just trying to reach my deadlines.

Through all of this, I’m trying to remember that the Hero does not achieve greatness by making himself seem great.

His (and her) greatness comes from the toils through the trials of life. He suffers through them and returns back to us with the gifts of the discovery.

The hero’s transformation is ours, in the end. It is we who make him great by recognizing the shared greatness between us.

The hero may experience the brief splash of fame, but it’s the predictable patterns of past failures that continue to ripple through the years.

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