Letter To The Fearful Artist

Dear Fearful artist,

What are you actually afraid of?!
Losing control? Being rejected? Disappointing others or yourself? 
Are these growing pains you're feeling? Are they childhood traumas awakening? 
What is it that keeps you up at night, wondering how to do THE WORK?
Or are you wondering why is it that you can't NOT do the work?

The artist's life is sometimes a weight to carry. A burden. A toll. A charge deep inside you. A fire that won't let go. You feel it with every breath you take. You try to calm it down. You say "Enough inspiration for one day. Leave me be. Let me live a NORMAL life for a change. A quiet, simple, disappearing life. A life that doesn't need to live forever. A life that doesn't need to be purposeful, to have meaning, to share the dream that is in my frail and mortal human eye." What is a normal life like? I wonder. And that wondering takes me on the artist's spin yet again.
'You are what you are' say people wiser than I. Yes, I am what I am and my eyes and how I see the world is  a never ending dream while I am awake. Life's biggest gift is poetry, music, dance. The languages that live beyond logic. That spiral in a different sphere. How to inhabit inhibitions is the conundrum of the social artist. How to live alone together, or together alone. How to make friends with the artist within. The artist that wants desperately to hide, and desperately to be seen. 
Oh, artist's life. You break me piece by piece, and you fill my heart with humanity with every word, and every story , and every frame, and every feeling captured in the camera's eye. 

I can say 'don't be afraid', but you will be afraid. 
Dreaming out loud is a scary act. Is a sacred act. Is a terrible act and a wonderful act. 
It's both selfish and both extremely generous.  It demands courage from every fiber of your being, and yet if there is no fear - there is no humanity. 

So be afraid, dear fearful artist. 
Make fire with your fear. Let it keep you warm. You will need to be warm to embrace your audience. 

Love,

Yet Another Fearful Artist.