In the beginning, I thought I heard the muse calling to me, beckoning me to write, enticing me to live a life that went beyond the suits and boots existence of business and going to brunch on weekends.

After many years of heeding a voice only I could hear, I ultimately realized that the muse, that goddess who encouraged me to swim upstream against the torrent of tradition and dogma, was not a construct of Greek mythology but my intuition—a faculty that has an assortment of definitions. Among other interpretations, intuition is the divine speaking directly to you, which I know to be so.

Still, this definition of intuition in all its clarity remains abstract until you hear and feel the voice of intuition for your own self. After that, there is no need to define it further because you have struck bedrock in the ways and means department of epistemology.

There are many different types of freedoms. Most people rank political freedom and financial freedom high on the list.

There is, however, only one true freedom and that is self-discipline, which sets the stage for all possibilities.

After a while it becomes evident to the evolved soul that it is not only pointless, but impossible to control others. It is much simpler and more effective to be in control of your own self. When you change your self, you do change your world—and the muses love the disciplined artist.

How many miracles would it take for you to have irrefutable evidence of the Great Creator? How much proof would be enough to substantiate your faith—one, two, three or more miracles to be sure, you understand.

Don’t reply too quickly. The answer might surprise you.

For many years I believed that you had to have faith in the Creator without any need of personal proof. After all, isn’t that what faith was all about? And that faith would some day pay off with some sort of proof—what kind I could not tell you.

For more about my confrontation with the true meaning of faith, read Faith inside the main site gallery.

A while ago I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Deepak Chopra on the phone. He was good enough to provide me with a few quotes for an article that has since blossomed into book I’m writing for artists on how to master rejection.

I told Deepak that I was thinking of him while riding the PATH train that runs from Hoboken, New Jersey to midtown Manhattan.

“Why is that?” he asked in his distinct Indian accent.

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Whining has relatives, bored and excuses to name two.

If you are bored, then you are boring.

Excuses. I can’t paint because the light isn’t right; I can’t paint with people watching me; I don’t have a studio; I don’t have a studio that’s big enough; I don’t have the right color oils; I can’t write at night; I can’t compose in the morning; and all the “I can’ts and don’ts” in the universe keep one a prisoner from entering the land called “can do.” Count and keep a log of how many negative thoughts you have in a single day; the number and their cumulative effect will startle you. 

For more about excuses (don’t put it off), read No Whining inside the main site gallery.