Are You Being Realistic?

There is one term that is used especially when it comes to doing anything outside of the status quo and that is to be ‘realistic’. It is like a warning, done as though it is from a place of love which it very well might be, but it is a way of saying, you are flying too close to the sun. It has connotations of not being sensible, being a little deluded and specifically being unrealistic. You are hoping and waiting for things that you are most likely not going to get. Isn’t being told to be realistic really a way of saying, don’t want the things you want or at the very least, dilute them and tone them down so that they seem more acceptable to the society at large.

I wouldn't mind the term if it had inherent in it a call to action and support that says go for it, and if it doesn't work out, you’ll be ok and you can try again or let it go. But being told to be realistic doesn’t really come equipped with that vibe, it comes in a conservative, conformist undertone from a proper adult who thinks that they are soothsayers and can predict the future, very sensible realistic future that they believe in. 

Everyone’s reality is different, it comes from what they have tried and their boundaries and limits as to what they believe to be possible. Be especially wary of those that tell you to be realistic who have not done anything outside of a prescribed norm and never dreamed further than what has already been created and can be seen in plain sight. 

Creators, dreamers and doers do not become those things by being obedient to the structure of what already exists. What is considered normal and possible are not the starting points for creatives. Why would they be, they are already here. We move from our imaginations where there are not the worldly limits and boundaries so strongly favoured by the majority. We think outside of  what is already in front of us, we are focussed and straddle two worlds, the seen and the already here and the unseen and yet to be. We are time travellers and can see things that have not yet shown up.

So we do not see reality in the same way as others might. We are not so overly interested in reality 100% of the time because we create from the unreal sphere. And it may seem deluded to the outside world but within those delusions there are real life practices. I do not show up and expect myself to be able to paint to the level I want to without the time or the training, without all the hours spent honing my skills and developing them month after month, year after year. I am training for the delusions I may hold and what others see as deluded thinking, I may see my future percolating ready to be revealed in time. I hold the hope, the space and do the work for that to appear and it has absolutely nothing to do with me being unrealistic. 

It would be a crime if I listened to others telling me about being realistic if it meant I put down my brushes, stopped my creative development, stopped spending the time training my skills and just succumbed to someone else's opinions about what they believed to be possible and said ok you must be right. I’ll stop doing what I am doing, what do you suggest would be a more realistic version? 

I’ve heard all the versions of reality others have told me I could reside in and none of them were what I would have deemed suitable for me. I didn’t want to have a ‘real’ job if it meant repressing my creativity except for the evenings and weekends. I didn’t want to ‘grow up’ if it meant undertaking work that made me miserable but was acceptable to society and the conditioning we are surrounded by. I am not here to serve another's set of beliefs and structures about what is and isn’t possible. We are all entitled to hold our own perceptions of what our own realities can look and feel like. And just because the reality of a creative may not mimic the reality of the majority doesn’t not make it unrealistic or incorrect and something to amend.