I think that everyone should watch this video. Especially if you consider yourself an artist. Especially if you consider yourself an artist of the storytelling variety (this is all art to me, but maybe not everybody feels that way.)
I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be an artist; what it means to want to be a storyteller. I've been thinking about what it is that I want from stories, and what it is I'm trying to give through mine. What I expect from the novels I read and the films I watch. It's not the same thing it used to be. I've been thinking about art, and what that means. I've been thinking about what it means to be a woman, or to be a girl, or to be both or neither, and why that even matters. And I've been thinking about love, and its portrayal.
What I've figured out is nothing about art, but rather this: I'm not the same person I used to be. I'm older, more aware, with different perspectives and opinions. It's a sudden shift, too, because I've been hanging on to who I thought I was so hard for so long. I don't know really what I've changed into yet, probably because I'm still in the process, and probably because I'm confused and naive, but I can tell you this: I am becoming more comfortable in my femaleness. I am becoming more confident in my outspokenness. I am simutaneously in love with the world and wanting to rage and howl at it. I am understanding how it was possible for Ginsberg to explode the way he did to write his Howl. I am wanting to write my own. I am not actually a good enough writer to do this. Just as long as I keep writing, I'll be satisfied.
In less than three months, if everything goes to plan, I will be on the other side of the world. I'm still terrified, but I'm getting more and more excited about it everyday.
