There is something about the human mind that rejects the free and the easy. We do not trust it, we do not believe in it, we always wait for the other shoe to drop. I suppose the problem is that we keep thinking of things in pairs of opposites, instead of taking the cycles as they come. When good things happen, we worry about a catch. We think in terms of the monkey's paw, and that's why we just do not see.

Nothing is free, that much is true. Everything is paid for. Take the Christian concept of salvation, for instance. It is free. It is a promo. All you have to do is take it, and it is yours. And that fact alone makes it the hardest to believe in.

But while salvation may be free for us, it's only because Someone already paid. And the fact remains that if you sign up for it, it won't always be that easy. It gets harder later. Then easy. Then hard. It's a cycle, not the Twilight Zone version of the Monkey's Paw. (That's just an example. Or maybe the first sentence of my upcoming opus called "The Zen of Christianity. Yes, I'm kidding. Oh wait, I already said that in a previous post.

Of course, it is a commitment, all promos are. If someone pays your way, there is an obligation. Especially when it is a price you yourself cannot afford. But that's another entry. So is the whys and the wherefores of it, the fine print, the little things the oversimplified tracts don't discuss. Just so you know. Just so you don't cancel your subscription too early and miss out on the rest. But the signing up part, that's easy.

Like my job. It is so easy, it gives me a headache. All I have to do is come in, and that's the hardest part.

The same is true with the job. The hard work was done earlier. Some of it was even done by me. That's why it's easy now. It'll get harder later, but that's not payment for now, it's the prepayment for the next tough time. That is the way of it. That is the way it should be.

Living is a great job, even if there are idiots who try to buy everything in the world and think that world domination includes that bright place in your head where your mind used to be. But the point isn't the wages at the end, or the work at the beginning, or how much more the other guy who was hired (born, to you people who don't get metaphors, you know who you are) after you gets.

The point is just to show up.

Everything else follows.

And the bill, at the end, is never as high as you were afraid it would be. And it always will be a bargain compared to what you got.

And I have no point, really. It's just that earlier, I read this:

"There are many things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But- and this is the point- who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go on your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get."

Annie Dillard, from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

Merry Christmas.

Accusations and Criticism

It occurs to me that internal critics are birthed by external ones.

Accusations are first heard by the ears, before they echo in the mind, magnified in the heart until it deafens the soul, disorienting the spirit .

And disoriented, it wobbles in insecurity, unable to move forward, hindering us from giving and taking our best, and accepting what will bring us joy, even when it is freely given and freely offered.

Even if we have experienced it before and knows what it brings us, it is that belief ithat one is underserving that stops us from walking a path we know leads to away from pain, and into light.

I remember drawing much in the time before a friend looked at my sketchpads and said, " Why is it that we artists can't afford materials, and you can when you're not even an artist?" I do not remember what I answered, I only remember that I stopped drawing.

I suppose it is why I have six blocks of Fabriano watercolor paper, and five of the Arches ones that remain unused, a number of watercolor sets and paints that remain untouched, and three Moleskines that have nothing but my name in them.

And I have noticed of late that I can, indeed, draw, not very well, not as well as when I drew every day; but I am improving with practice. But I can only draw on scratch paper and used office paper or the back pages of my sister's old exercise sketchbook, using ballpoint, or regular office issue pencils and signpens. All of these are cheap' they will not be wasted when a good artist could put them to much better use. Put a piece of "expensive" paper in front of me and I freeze, put artist-grade paints in front of me and the colours turn muddy, put a charcoal pencil in my hand and my palms sweat, which turns the paper into a sheet with blobs and blotches of black and gray.

I cannot even bring myself to sign up for an online class, much less a live one, there is a fear of being told by professionals that I am talentless, and have wasted my money, that I am better off writing because that would be a more productive use of my time.

It would not be so bad if the paralysis did not extend to my writing, because, after all, that is my job and what I have been known to be since I was eight. But it does.

I can only write and draw in the notebooks I make, not in a Moleskine. And while my sisters point out that those notebooks I sew probably cost more than Moleskines in terms of my time, the fact that they were created by me makes them less valuable, and as such, unintimidating and more useable.

But I want to draw. I want to paint. I want to see. And then I remember what I told my copywriter, the one whose previous bosses had asked him if he was sure he was a writer and was thus doubting it himself, "Do you want to write? Then write anyway. Labels are useless."

So I draw anyway, and I paint anyway, despite not being an artist. And the fact that I am surrounded by real ones will not stop me.

After all, I am also not a great chef, but that does not stop me from boiling an egg when I am hungry and must eat.

Perhaps one day I shall try it on a real stove. And perhaps one day I shall use my real art materials.

Perhaps.