Your art, if it be true, will inevitably dismiss you from normal life. As you create more and more, you’ll find yourself driven further from normalcy than you could ever imagine. This idea is at the crux of the catch 22 of being a creator. That is: you create alone, but are not alone, necessarily. Further, an artist is always an artist of one. May we write together, yes, but are we ever together in writing, no. Not an island by itself, but an island with a single tenious bridge, always.

Accepting this will allow your gifts to the world to make THEIR mark. Living your island life will make them watch, look, and listen to your craft because normal is the status quo and your island will always appear unusual to them. This is because the status quo has been done, it’s old. So old that we’re tired of hearing and seeing it. Everyone is always looking for something new. Do you have it? They’re hoping that life, through your art, will have something peculiar to offer and if you’re afraid of standing for innovation, then your creation will slowly become just another tired assimilation to the status and the ideology of “tried and true” has no home within the arts.

Another venture into what’s already been known, already discovered. Been done. And this, above all else, will always be uninspiring, boorish, and depressing. And for those suffering in their life from a lack of creativity, inspiration is their greatest need in assisting them to make their next move, to call them out of the ordinary back into the extraordinary they know is there, somewhere. This is why, as an artist, calling your island home will be so paramount. People need a new way of looking at the world if they themselves are to find the courage to face their mundane.

To find the strength to break a cycle, we need art that is true to it’s creator, not just another assimilation because then we can see that we too can make a different choice, strike a different note, and learn a new song in life. To get out of the spinning wheel. To know there’s life outside the wheel, we must first behold true art with our eyes. The world need your weird, different, and unique creations because without them, there’s no vision for the future. If you abandon your island for the safety of land, then we risk not making it to our destiny. So, please, stay weird so that we may continue to live with possibility.

Share what you’ve made that you believe is too much and let it all be rejected, but don’t keep these creations hidden out of an abundance of fear your art won’t assimilate, for assimilation is where art goes to die. Great art doesn’t assimilate. It makes its own category. Stands on its own, needs no reference point, and becomes its own standard of influential mobility.

If my art is to matter, then I cannot lend a single thought to what you might or might not think of it because as soon as I do, Iv’e given way to assimilation. Wondering, will my art fit? Is a question of ultimate damnation to the barracks of dust and decay. But, wondering, will my art have an impact? Will always lead to the possibility of art making the statement it must make for it to remain true to itself, it’s creator.

Will my art make a splash, a wave, or, even, just a ripple, or will it fall into the bottomless pit that is consumer culture? Swallowed into the churning devouring gullet of the masses and regurgetated into micro bits of forgotten trash? Never to be seen again and irrevocably added to the blubberous tumor that culture calls “art”, which is really now only a euphemism for pleasure. This all depends on if it comes from your island, or from the lands of safety.

So don’t be shy when your art creates a stir, raises eyebrows, or isn’t always all the time comfortable. The more they label you weird, the more you know you’re on the right track to creating something lasting that may even effect lifelong change, a resonation that can never be assimilated and, thus, has the greatest chance of raising the status. Your writing, always weird, will bring evolution, and, most importantly, fight stagnation in a world so desperate to be authentically moved.