Art is Leadership
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The weather has been strange today. A downpour this morning, sun midday, more rain in the evening. For a brief moment, I felt the atmosphere shift as the clouds rolled in. Little whisps of cooler air dancing along exposed skin.
It is magical, the rain — almost terrifying, the bend of the trees.
I wonder how safe I am under this pavilion. The light fixtures sway in the wind, but the rest remains unshaken.
I feel as the weather seems — a little strange, unyielded, cycling from one state to another.
So much I want to say to you and so much I still feel I am learning.
I sense I am breaking through a barrier of sorts to see differently.
I see to find what is honest. I am able to filter information rather than blindly receive it.
I am no longer outsourcing intuition on the merit of a stranger’s stance.
For once, I do not cower with inferiority or rise subconsciously superior to another. I find the human in me aware of the human in them. There is less I am impressed by and less I need to prove.
I let silence exist with those unaccustomed to it and find less energy is wasted attempting to fill it as they retreat to familiarity.
I know I am talked about and for the first time, I do not care because I know it is more about their insecurity than it is something about me. And if it truly be a fault in myself, I let their silent judgement be their own, finding a fuller state of grace within my internal world I’d rather live by.
The integrity of my presence is more valuable than appeasing false intimacy.
Life still feels funny in moments. I feel funny in moments.
Maybe it is the food I ate or the bit of sleep I didn’t get. But there is less internal drama and more empathy for the situations I find myself in.
I get to feel again. And that sentence alone brings tears to my eyes.
“When you find integrity lacking all around you, first find it within yourself. You change the world from where you’re standing.”
Before I left America, I watched this show called Madam Secretary over and over. Some would say it was disassociation, which it definitely was, but my soul seemed to study this woman, Elizabeth McCord — the strength in her marriage, the way she showed up in the world with such passion, navigating the full range of fear and doubt and loss to find conviction midst incredibly complex situations. When her decisions were attacked, she could stand by them because she did not compromise along the way. Such integrity. Such respect I have for this fictional character.
It is not always easy to be honest when others don’t realize they are pretending.
I find courage has a different force behind it than I imagined.
“Art is leadership,” I thought the other day. It is saying what others won’t say in a way people are moved to listen.
It is being the weird one so other’s feel they can be weird too.
We need more weird, I feel. Not for the sake of weirdness, but for sake of originality. More gracious spaces where various ideas collide in respect. We need to not be afraid of what is different and what we do not know.
This is the journey I am on and I am content in seeing where it leads.
Thanks for tuning in.
