I don’t believe people that claim to know which of their countless lived moments were the “formative” ones. I guess they usually talk about the formative years, but still.
In the end, most of your life is and will be, forgotten. By you and everyone else. And there are so many moments that you will remember – the time your father’s girlfriend told you to let your food cool down before eating, so you don’t ruin your enamel – that are completely random. And honestly, the ones that are most formative are often not only forgotten but suppressed.
Still humans love to find connections around them. That’s why horoscopes work so well. It doesn’t matter, really, what’s written in the column under your star sign. You’ll find the connection it has to your life and become further convinced of whatever it is that you already thought about yourself.
Sometime back around 2008, I found myself in the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On the whole, it wasn’t a particularly interesting or out-of-the-ordinary situation. This memory is more of a thought that I had now. And 2 degrees and a humble start to my career later, I find it to be perhaps one of those “formative” moments. Again, I don’t actually believe in that nonsense, but that’s the connection I made.
I guess my point about not believing in formative moments is that they aren’t moments that form us. The moment that I’m thinking of in this museum didn’t make me the way that I am. It’s more like a defining moment, in the sense that it could be used to define or “explain” how I think in a way.
Anyway, the exhibit included sketches that O’Keeffe had done in her early years. Really, they were pages from her notebooks. Not something, I’m sure, she ever expected would be seen by anyone other than herself or maybe her close friends.
I stood there, in that museum, staring at her notebooks and thinking to myself, “Shit. What if my notebooks will be part of a future display of my life’s works? I should make sure to carefully curate whatever I do from now on.” Even in my most private, personal notebooks – I write and draw and fuck up for an audience. An unknown audience, but an audience nonetheless. And keep in mind, I was 13 years old at the time – worrying about curating my life…
Still, I am constantly aware and afraid of the future – of what it will be and of what it won’t be. I will never be Georgia O’Keeffe (duh) or rival her talent in any way. And the primary reason for that is my innate awareness or belief even that anything and everything I do is open to future judgment.
Unfortunately for me and my potential for future success, this results in debilitating anxiety which prevents me from putting pen to paper no matter the circumstance.
I can’t possibly sketch anything subpar in my notebook because then it will be part of the exhibit. But also, I can’t possibly sketch anything outside of my notebook because then it will be lost and it won’t be part of the exhibit. What a headache it is to curate your own life while you’re still living it.
Can you imagine? Surely no successful artist has ever done this before. I can tell you that for two reasons. First, it prevents one almost completely from making any real progress in anything. And second, most successful artists only become successful once they’ve died.
It reminds me of the feeling of awe that comes over me every time I hear about 2 seemingly unrelated, famous authors knowing each other. At first, I ponder the glory of having such a fantastically successful friend group, and then slowly it dawns on me that from their perspective they were just living life and enjoying the company of like-minded individuals.
They couldn’t have possibly known the impact that they would have on future generations… They simply did what they had to do to get by. For them, it meant writing. Or painting. Or drinking themselves silly, at the very least.
Is it possible to follow that path in the other direction? First, to be painfully aware of the possible impact you might have on future generations, and only then to determine what and how that might look like? The jury’s still out, but meanwhile, it’s causing me to fall into a depression, like falling into a slumber as a child when you’re still mid-sentence trying to convince your parents that you’re not even sleepy. Your eyes flutter, you try with all your might to pry them open, before falling.
On the other hand, most great artists were hopelessly depressed or mad or whatever in their peak creative years. So, maybe I’m closer than I imagine myself to be.