Watching an Ac/Dc interview on Highway to Hell (over on Youtube) one of the things that caught my eye was that these blokes never censor their songs. Never. Of course they also don’t censor their lifestyle either, but that’s another story — the key is that they do not censor their creative output. I think we could all learn something from that.
On Highway to Hell one of the bros. says that the song came out of his stumbling out out of a bar and saying to a friend “We are on the highway to hell, mate” and then they starting singing. Now while that does not sound like genius, and perhaps it is isn’t, it is a real insight to what creativity is all about: using that one good line and working with it full pelt until you have something.
Most of us would drop the ball, make a joke and move on. Ac/Dc does not and and that’s the difference between successful artists and daydreams. You could point to stories in the Bible like that, one prophet gets upset and says Who will listen to me? What do I know? and God always responds, You just do it, matey, don’t worry about the rest.
Obviously like the prophets most of us suffer from very real self censorship? All the ideas comes out but they produce conflict, (I’don’t have the time, I have so much to do, what if someone doesn’t like it, I don’t know yada yada yada) and that conflict produces anxiety, that horrible feeling of uneasiness that utops us from moving forward because we would rather feel numb, comfortably numb and safe.
To be honest, that’s not living. Oh I am not pointing fingers, and if I am I am pointing them heavily at myself. I have so many doubts and inner conflicts that sometimes I just go and play solitaire and figure “that too will pass”. But it’s a joke, as it doesn’t and it won’t. The only way forward is to go through it with blinders on, as fast as possible.
In the end, all of these excuses are variations of “Pride goeth before the fall” — too worried about how you will look or be perceived and not enough about expressing your own creative talent. No matter what you excuse you come up with, and there are more than I can enumerate, they are all on the Highway to Hell.
In my anguish... 