be you

You were born an original.  Don't die a copy. 

John Mason

 This is sorta a "re - entry" - an abridged version of something I posted a couple of years ago - I thought it was worth posting again.

 I think one of the most difficult things to do in life is to not compare yourself to others, not to measure yourself by the progress or regression of other people – especially those fictitious characters you see on the TV screen. I am writing this in specific reference to art and the challenge to be original, but it is a generic application. We all have uniqueness, but sometimes we get caught up in the propaganda of this high tech, consumer driven society. I think of people like Beatrice Potter and Vincent van Gogh who lived in isolation by today’s standards and the work they produced and the people they were - totally unique. I wonder how dishonest their art would have been had they lived now amongst all the pressure and illusion of what is real. We must look inside and discover ourselves and it is so difficult with all of the intrusions. A place, a physical place is what I think works best at finding the internal place, that place that is the authentic “you”.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. 

e.e. cummings, 1955

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. 

e.e. cummings

b u

p.s.