Dear Pogue,

Since I wrote to you the other day about David Bowie there has been a conversation going on concerning people’s favourite songs. Everybody has a favourite Bowie song. You know the catalogue is large and varied spanning many years. As you’d expect, the same songs keep coming up over and over. Heroes, Golden Years, Space Oddity, Starman, China Girl, Young Americans being amongst the most popular songs.

A friend of mine texted me (no human contact in these troubled times) to ask what my favourite song is and I replied it’s actually a track that was never released as a single. Yes, I love all those songs listed above but there’s a track on the Hunky Dory album that’s just up there for me. It’s called Kooks. Really early Bowie lacking a lot of the sophistication that was yet to come.

You know what I’m like. That set me off thinking. What if an artist, indeed what if we, that’s you and me, don’t develop and mature to the pinnacle of our achievements over a period of years, but comes right out of the starting blocks and, bang, deliver? The best that will ever be. A short time of brilliance, and it’s happened. Musicians who came to the world with a screaming hot album and then declined and faded away. Or authors who answered their need to write a novel and it was awesome. You read it two or three times, but the publishing house had tied them to a three book deal and they’ve already said all that they needed to and…well there’s nothing left to say.

There is an author called Patrick Rothfuss who signed up for a trilogy. He wrote two of the three books required of him over a four year period and they were epic. Called the Kingkiller Chronicle they won awards and we all waited and waited, and waited and still waited for the concluding novel. Nine years have passed. Had his moment of excellence, his genius, arrived too early? Will the finale, if ever written, disappoint us?

Maybe we need to reconsider our perceptions of life. You know, how we think we start on the course, work hard, practice, learn, dedicated and ascend the mountain to the pinnacle. Perhaps our moment is now? Could it be that here is the time to power everything into? That we should live today like this is it. I’ll never do it better so it’s beyond worthy of giving my all. And I think we know when we peak, if we are honest with ourselves. If we want to go on doing what we do but doing it in mediocrity, then, so be it. How many musicians are out there turning out the same old same old. Living off of a moment that is now long gone. I’d say, let it go. Move on. Find a new goal, a different ambition and go after it building towards a new future. Reinvent yourself. Dare to do it. It’s a brave new world every day and if you are to pour everything into today who knows…

One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.

selfmadeladies.com

Bowie remained musical all of his life but his super power was his ability to reinvent himself. Not to hang onto or return to Ziggy Stardust, or the Thin White Duke, but to see these as seasons in his creativity to be fulfilled and left behind.

Creativity flows constantly but doesn’t always manifest in the same way. That’s the wonderful thing about it. We’re not locked into a single manifestation or a moment in time that will define us. Creation is an attribute of God, a character of the Universe, limitless, so it’s potential to flow through each and everyone of us in a variety of ways is constant. As God would tell you, the limits aren’t on her end.

trust yourself enough to let go, shift, and uproot. give yourself permission to shed who you use to be. you are allowed to start over and find new ways to bloom into your best self.

alex elle

There you are. Have you had a moment of creative genius? Peaked too early?

Well, if that is so do not be defined by it, enjoy it and all that goes with it and move on. Do not finish your life at that moment and go forward only existing.

Maybe you haven’t peaked but move forward towards your best. If so believe this day is when it will happen and invest everything in it. Give it your heart and your soul, your imagination, your dream. Fill it right up and, if tomorrow you wake up and find you can do it better, do it! One day you’ll know you’ve reach the summit, that particular summit, and in that day enjoy it, but don’t dwell too long or be defined by it. Move on. Creativity doesn’t rest or know any limits. Follow a different path to another summit. Reinvent yourself. Just don’t become a single event which once happened in your life.

Yours, seeking new opportunities,

Wic