Showing Up

See how I'm here? See how I'm doing the thing?

Isn’t it crazy the random places we find inspiration?

Today is my really, really long day. Tons of sessions, lots back to back, and I’m feeling really tired now that it’s over. I feel like the last couple of days of posts have been quite long (yesterday’s took me several hours) so my mind was getting a bit dodgy when it came to today’s post.

Instead of posting, now that my day of work is over, I had grabbed my phone and had taken a trip down to Scroll town, where I was scrolling like a full-on ScrollTroll. I was in no shape to be thinking constructively about how I was going to remain true to my commitment today. I was too busy being zoned out and dissociated laughing at Rupaul lip synch clips and funny Tiktoks.

I was at risk folks. I was on the edge of not following through, right here on the 13th day— right in the middle of the thing.

But then I stumbled on a reel from the violinist Hilary Hahn who, over the years of watching her from a distance, I have come to appreciate more and more—as a violinist, yes, but also an ally and an advocate for the downtrodden and a person deeply rooted in living a life that is authentic and positive and genuine and good. A person who delights in experimenting with her own psychology, and who finds intrigue in all kinds of lovely discoveries about self, and seems to love figuring out how her own mind works.

I was intrigued to see what AI would come up with when I put in “Hilary Hahn.” I was definitely not expecting polydactyl faux-Hilary Han and her conjoined twin playing a weirdly large instrument… but I guess that’s what we’re going with cuz I’m too tired to grab a real photo lol

Anyway, she was posting about her 100-days-of-practice challenge that she does every year where she posts clips of her actually practicing. It is such a generous, authentic act to see this world-class instrumentalist struggle to practice and struggle as she practices. In the clip I’d stumbled on, she was saying something so interesting, but I honestly can’t remember the details now that the moment has past. But it was something about how in the past when she has done this challenge, it has inspired her to show up in certain ways, but how this time she is learning to show up in other, different ways, and as she said it, the words “show up” just reverberated in my mind over and over and over. Show up. All it takes is to show up. It was like a directive: just hop on your computer and show up.

And so I did. I just opened it up, and now here I am.

Showing up and doing the thing.

And it feels really good. And was simple. And came together in a way that just feels… right. Nothing groundbreaking or novel. Nothing to write home about. Just an artist doing what he can do to show up and practice his art.

I don’t want to belabor the lesson here, but it feels fitting given the theme of the last few days’ posts. Of course this is enough. Of course me showing up for myself at all is the only thing that actually matters.

(Why does life sometimes seem like learning the same nine or so lessons over and over and over again in different ways?)

Anyway, good night one and all. And remember: sometimes being congruent and aligned with your intentions can be as simple as showing up and knowing that that’s enough.

Love,

Joshua