A Snake With Wings

I want to be famous. There I said it. Don't shoot me, okay? I realized consciously this morning that this is my biggest liability as an artist. For some people it fuels them--they call it ambition. For me, it stops me from doing 90% of what I really want to do. I call this doughnut ambition--ambition with out the goods. I would surgically remove this desire if I could. It's a leach to my creative power. It's the ego stuffing me with junk food. This morning, like so many mornings, I struggled over why I am still having a hard time with songwriting. Why, after years of work, what once came naturally for me, is a daily battle. Every time I start a new song, a feel this snake curls up behind my ear and hisses: Already been done...Not good enough...Everything sounds the same...no meaning...it's not as good as you used to be... It also fills my head with pictures of fame and glory, where the audience is filled with people who have done me wrong, movie stars, people I want to impress, and they are all so WOWED. And then I freeze up, I can't move forward. On Saturday I was listening to the late great Joseph Campbell say the ego's mythological symbol is the dragon. You must slay the dragon to get to your heart's desire. And what is a dragon, but a snake with wings?

My ego stops me from learning, it stops me from moving forward. As a result, I am seeing I am in a terrific battle with myself. I am not willing to let go of all that I have built up, but it is dragging me down and holding me there.

My friend Rico told me the story of William Faulkner. After 3 novels that failed to sell well, his publisher dropped him. Faulkner took this as the greatest gift of his life. He moved back to Mississippi from New York, feeling he could at last write whatever he wanted. What he wrote next became American classics.

This morning, I started trying that on. What if I looked at my life with a sense that 'failure' is actually a gift of freedom.

Wish me luck. I need it to slay that dragon.