Keep this thought in your heart, mind and soul and you will discover magic: Truth is not out there; truth is within you.

If you want the truth, you will find it.

I bought a Peugeot quartz wristwatch a few months ago. It featured a simple yet elegant face with an analog dial and the day of the month.

It may sound like an expensive timepiece, but the watch, made in China, was on sale for under fifty dollars at Macy’s. I’d wear it every now and then and although it kept accurate time, the day of the month seemed to be off on a couple of occasions as the numerical date display indicated it was a day earlier. Okay, I thought, another defective product. I put the watch back in its case with the store receipt. I went to sleep.

The next morning the watch problem had been resolved while I had slept. When my eyes opened, I realized the watch didn’t know if a month had 28, 29, 30, or 31 days in it. It was up to me to manually change the date accordingly. I not only saved myself a trip to the mall, I again proved to my self that when you release a problem, the answer will reveal itself to you in good time. 

A new year marks yet another tick on your cosmic clock.

Time is something you have been given to spend; if you reflect on it, you see that time is the ultimate currency. You have been allotted a certain amount of time and how you spend it is up to you.

Knowing your time is finite is a good kick in the pants for putting life in perspective. Avoid pettiness, dispel nuisances, and focus on achieving your dream—a passion you must realize for your own self.  No one else will do it for you.

Jackson Pollock said he was nature. He killed himself anyway by driving while drunk. Pollock, yet another tortured artist, could not enjoy his own success since he didn’t know the source of his art. He felt as if he were the middle man, a fraud in some respect, and unworthy of the appreciation that came his way during his lifetime.

Whether you love or hate his work, Pollock’s life is a lesson for all artists. If you are tortured when you are unknown, becoming known is the not the bromide you might envision—as Pollock proved to himself and to any other artist smart enough to see.

Being nature as Pollock proclaimed is a grand perspective that I am in tune with. Think about it. The great artist does not emulate nature; he adds to nature by contributing to the cosmic canvas. That is what a creator does. He works in the eye of the hurricane.

Who am I? Who are you?

I love the word threshold. There is a boundary between the true artist and a wannabe. This boundary is not the demarcation line between talent on one side and its absence on the other. It is talent plus self-motivation—an action term more described than exercised.

Where do you stand in relation to this dividing line? Can you have one foot on the stage and the other in the audience? Ouch—and I mean man. That would be a painful and pointless stretch.

The true artist as a creator has no boundaries.