Impetuous Potential

Down and Dirty.  This is a quick and messy sketch that will need to be realized again on better and larger paper.  Today’s drawing is a culmination of numerous circumstances that keep slamming my brain on occasion.  Last night another stunning charismatic light left the earth.  His name was Vance Bockis.  Vance has left a gazillion fans who were inspired and mesmerizedby his amazing charismatic presence. He radiated impetuous potential. He had more charisma and true rock gist oozing from his being than Mick Jagger.  Yet, he was not endlessly famous.  What he was, was yet another sprightly and poignant soul that sparkled too bright and burned out too early.  I say too bright, because those who can’t fizzle up and explode on the world have difficulty with those who can.  I say too early, because he had no intention of leaving the planet and perhaps a life of excess made way for that very moment.  Who knows.

What I do know is that I have spent many conversation with my best friend Jeff about the day we would let our potential out of the box and soar to upward and onward to all that was possible.  Jeff up and died one night as I was left looking at his facebook green ichat icon until someone turned it off.  I’ve spent the past two years sitting on the sidelines, watching life go by. A dear friend of mine lost his son recently to alcohol.  Not an overnight issue, but a lengthy run that burned his liver out.  His son was also a brilliant light that radiated the world.  On the other side, my mother, who also left earlier than anticipated, never did reach her full potential or realize most of her dreams.

I am left absorbing the impact of all this mortality and wondering which is better, the impetuously spirited life that sparkles to a short lived run or the long decades of potentialized dreams always on the horizon?  I have to go with the slow route, but am realizing there is little time left to sparkle.  I spend an inordinate amount of time containing my impetuous potential… It has a personality all it’s own and wants to play, be and stay actualized.  I on the other hand am complicated and wise and know better than to let my creative side run rampant.  Yet here I am still not out there, shinning away and yet another star light has gone.  I need a bit of Vance in me.  I am packed full of impetuous potential but I am too good at keeping it at bay.  I take it for a walk each night and have a drawing or two.  I let it out only after I’ve done what the day requires.  I wonder what would happen if I just let it out and kept on living?  I wonder what that journey would bring.  Creativity is like an animal all it’s own.  It’s not something one simply uses like a tool.  For me it’s a state of mind that burns a lot of energy and works fearlessly and with stunning agility.  But it doesn’t co-exist well with the regular world of normal, job going folk and I think that is why I don’t let my entire life be as creative as it should be.  I’ve been wasting a lot of time trying to show how normal I am.  I’m going to wrap up all my left over back log of projects in the coming few months and let 2013 be the start of letting my impetuous potential sing.  It’s been begging to my entire life.  Perhaps it’s time to electrify and burst out of my self made box. Life is too short and I have so much more to give.

Vance, you were amazing and that is what we should all be.  You did it right.  You were you on fire.  Thanks for reminding us all, it is possible.

Britt