A Choice Between Two Deaths

Album Release Diary (03): The unescapable choice an artist faces when sharing their work with the world.

I am standing on the edge of a cliff. Looking over a vast drop. Wind whips my hair and I balance precariously as I look over the immense verdant valley beneath me. Down there, tens of thousands of eyes stare up at me. Judging. Placing bets as to whether I’m about to fall on my face, leap— or both. And to top it all off…

I’m buck naked.

And as I notice my exposed… everything, an oil slick of black shame crawls over my skin and up my spine, and before I know it, it’s pressing down on my chest, my neck… my throat constricting as my pulse quickens and I struggle to breathe.

This is how it often feels as I stand on the biggest precipice of my career as an artist: Sending my first album into the world. Exposing my heart in ways I never have before in any other medium.

It feels sometimes like certain death.

Like If I show this side of me, share these thoughts, sing these words— I will die.

But the paradox is…

That I will also die if I don’t.

And this is the inescapable choice of the artist— a choice between two deaths:

To face potential ego-death in the giving of your most vulnerable truth OR to die from never giving it, suffocated by your unexpressed magic.

(Seems kinda like a bum deal. But this choice offers the gift of, at the very least, learning, and at most, soul fulfillment. So, maybe not a bum deal… more like a catalyst?)

When it comes down to it— one death leads to death of the ego, and the other leads to death of the soul.

And that is perhaps the true choice: My ego? Or my Soul?

Which will I choose?

My ego will give me all kinds of logical and sensible reasons NOT to choose my soul. It’s too dangerous. They won’t understand you. You’ll be rejected. It’s too risky. Let me remind you of the abandoned, burned & institutionalized women who used their voices in previous generations… (and on it goes.)

And my soul will sit peacefully. Annoyingly so. Waiting. And speak ever so quietly— too quietly: You can do it. You know what you must do. You came here for this. You were born for this. One small step forward. Keep going…

And yet, the choice is always mine to make.

And the choice seems obvious from here. From a distance.

But when you’re inside the choice, standing on the cliff edge—it’s not easy.

I get stuck in the fear. Frozen in the anxious projections of my mind, like:

Can you actually die of shame?

Can it kill you, for real?

Can the projections of others—their suppressed dreams & unrealized desires—suffocate you when you beat the odds and share your art?

I believe the answers to the above to be no— but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. And so I combat my fearful thoughts with logic:

Why do I even think this way? Am I messed up? Why does sharing my songs feel like such a big deal? I AM NOT A BIG DEAL! Why does my mind make me so important that when I decide to get vulnerable & share my story/art/voice— it is certain everyone will stop chewing mid-Christmas dinner, the needle will screech off the record & blind rage will fill the eyes & hearts of all assembled? That the voice of God himself will descend, shouting:

“HOWWW DARRRE YOUUUUU!!!”

“WHOOO DOO YOUU THINNNK YOUU ARRRRE, BARBARAAA STREISANDD?!”

“YOUUU ARRREEE SOOO FUULLL OFFF YOURSELLFFF!”

The truth is…

No one cares even a fraction as much as I do. Everyone is busy living their lives, pursuing their dreams, while actively NOT thinking of me and my album.

But an ego trying to protect itself— at all cost— avoids the places it is the most vulnerable. And I, my friends, am most vulnerable when it comes to singing.

Why?

Because I love it the most.

So, of course, it’s where I’ve been hurt the most. You can’t really get deeply hurt around something you don’t care about— because you simply can’t be bothered to care. But something you LOVE? That’s where we’re the most vulnerable.

And that’s why choosing to follow the deepest calling of our soul to do what we love… can feel like choosing death.

Because in a way, we are.

We are choosing to let a part of the ego die… the part that keeps us safe by not expressing ourselves. The part that holds us in fear and keeps us frozen. Safe and silent. Alive in body, but dead to our soul.

So, perhaps it is actually a blessing that life is always presenting us with this choice. Because maybe, it’s not a choice between two deaths, but rather, between death and...LIFE.

Because choosing our soul brings more life. Yes it’s scary, but we are facing our fears, expanding our hearts, growing in courage, becoming more ALIVE, even as a part of our ego dies…

Whereas, choosing ego survival puts us to sleep. Breathing, but bypassing our lives. Here, but not really… going through the motions. Dying a little more each day.

So, in the end. Maybe the real question is:

Will we choose death… or LIFE?