Experience, there's no substitute

Tuesday afternoon I am running on the treadmill watching Oprah’s celebrity Scype show and Meryl Streep says, “Everyone’s experience makes true that which is their own truth.” Now I have believed very strongly that truth is relative. Experience is really the truth which we all seek and basically that there is no truth. You can trick yourself in truth and you can believe what you want to, but that is your truth. No one can judge what your truth is. No can determine that your experience is not true.

Saying that, and thinking about that, I feel so disappointed in myself. I have talked that talk for twenty years but now I realize I do not walk that walk. Instead I look to others, friends, family, even celebrities, for their truth. I look for some path I can follow, I want some answers to my questions and proof that there is a right way and I can do it the right way. I take every comment as criticism. I take every judgment of another as judgment of myself.

Questions, like hailstones, assail you until you find answers. I have so many questions and no one has the answers. I feel like I have more questions about myself and my life than I have ever had before. I am 42 years old and only recently do I (instead of always having all the answers), feel like I am just beginning to start asking questions. I have always had an overconfidence based on my smartness, my ability to do well in school and posses knowledge. But now I realize I am such an idiot. I have so much to learn and I have so much to do.

How do you pretend to be normal, when you are not?

What do you do when you count all your blessings, when you realize you have everything one could want: a loving family, food on the table, a roof over head, a warm bed, nice clothes and a car: but still you want more?

How do you determine your own worth with out comparing yourself to others?

Ususally I can answer these kinds of questions through the process of making art - Obviously I need to make art. Why do I so often forget that?

Both images are by scientistÉtienne-Jules Marey (1830 - 1904)