Robert Frost once shared “two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” While some chose, as he did, to take the road less traveled, I chose a different path. My gut reminded me that Doc Brown once quipped “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.” There was no need for me to ground myself, quite literally. Casey Kasem used to end his DJ broadcasts with: “keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.” I loved Casey, but I have to disagree, at least for me.
While Frost chose the other road, I didn’t choose a road at all. Call me a Rebel. Heck, call me Neo. I traversed neither path and took to the skies. Shakira’s “Try Everything” heroine’s tune from Zootopia sums up my daily routine. I don’t wait for fate anymore. I blaze my own trails, and nowadays I hire myself. I don’t work for anyone else anymore. This was both a mental and spiritual decision. According to the experts I either have manic depressive disorder or just a really wild imagination. I’d say both are accurate.
My life, my dreams, and on my own terms. I am not boasting nor am I being selfish. It took me half a century to unravel all the masks I’d crafted that were protecting me from unknown forces in the dark. I got so lost along the way I felt like Max in Vecna’s Mindscape Lair. I needed to remember my hero song of protection. The first thing I had to do was go back to my childhood and ask myself who was I, what did I love? What were my hobbies, and who were my heroes? Movies. Stories. Art. Drawing. Painting. Lucas. Spielberg. Dad. I was a collector — “an obtainer of rare antiquities.”
“You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”
― Jim Carrey, the comedian, actor, and one of the wisest sages on the planet
Once I remembered what got me excited to meet each day with vigor and excitement there was no stopping me. I don’t wait anymore for the world to come to me. I did that for decades as one connection naturally met another. Word of mouth marketing served me well as far back as my early teenage years. Based solely on skill and reputation in my mind I was the “king of the world!” However, that was only the tip of my iceberg. Taking nearly fifty years to understand my life doesn’t need permission nor do I need it to show up for me in order to find my way.
I was highly fortunate to never have to really go job hunting as even in my darkest hours an offer letter would come in for my consideration at just the right moment for a position I never applied to from a company I hadn’t pursued. The most rewarding conclusion I came to was that I didn’t need to wait around anymore for someone else to give me a job. I didn’t need someone else’s praise in order to find my way. I had the will within me to try, to trust, and to rely on my own ambitions. By following my intuition rather than the latest artificial invention I recharged my super powers.
Some people look my way giving a smirk thinking to themselves that everything I am doing must be based on heavy helpings of crazy. They taunt why does David have so many self-employed company pages on LinkedIn? My answer is simple: I’m a traditional polymath and I rarely use tools in the most standard, predictive fashion. While each entry isn’t really a company, they are all part of my daily routine as a creative. Leonardo da Vinci and I have a lot in common. I’m just an apprentice to his genius, but the connection is there.
Like so many other artists and high performers I have manic depression as I mentioned above. The best metaphor I can think of to describe this condition is I’m Superman, but I have a large chunk of kryptonite I carry in a sack on my back. When I’m exposed to its green glow I lose all of my powers. The redneck at the diner could easily take me out with one punch. However, I now hold the key to walking through hell fire without being burned. I now carry a shield crafted by the ancients, a glowing blue sword of Elvish design, and a lamp I found in The Great Underground Empire.
Call me anything you like as it’s none of my business what others think of me. When I was six the bullies on the bus called me Hulk. I scowled a lot and appeared always angry. The fact was that I always squinted because I needed glasses. My teammates called me Superman, and now my daughter calls me Batman. The Dark Knight had a toy for everything. So do I. While I was in dire financial straits I sold my original Star Wars action figures from 1977–1983. That one hurt, but it had to be done. Since then I’ve rebuilt my collection, and one day I will gift them all to my kid.
“I keep on making those new mistakes. I keep making them every day. Those new mistakes.”
That’s where wisdom floods our gray matter. We realize in that moment that if we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. We must fall down many times before we ever fly out of the nest. It’s a cyclic, winning formula that took me five decades to finally master. Now I cannot unsee what I’ve seen. I’m now much wiser for the wear, but only in this moment. That’s all we really have is this breath. Sometimes holding our breath for a few moments during meditation helps to open our third eye. While some folks live lives of closed off ignorance, my gray matter sparks my third eye wide. Be well.