The Prison of Expectation

"I have devoted my life to uncertainty.
Certainty is the death of wisdom, thought, creativity." ~ Shekhar Kapur

I don't know about you, but that's some deep stuff right there. This idea that if we dedicate ourselves, our efforts, talents, emotional and physical expenditures to an uncertain outcome, we release ourselves from a sort of prison of expectation. That we have to sacrifice, if sacrifice is even the appropriate word, our ideals and just allow our creativity to exist on its own terms. What a beautiful, freeing approach, when we can reject the expected, and accept the reality, in whatever incarnation it manifests. There's beauty there, I think.

Sure, there's an element of risk involved. We can always prick our fingers on the unpredictable edge of the "unplanned". But I wonder if the risk isn't worth the reward... seeing the bloom of creative passion, expressed in unabashed abandon, that we might otherwise hamper with the pressure of our own expectations. Gives me all kinds of warm and fuzzies just thinking about it and, I suppose, this will always be a risk I welcome.

I sometimes wonder if I'm too safe. Do the expected thing, make my apologies for it, and do it again. I wonder if I take enough risk. I wonder on the value of risk. It's late, and I tend to romanticize these things, internalize them and twist them all up with my own creative processes just to see what happens. Perhaps that's a risk all on its own.

And then I wonder if I appreciate the risks I've been allowed to take in my life, if I fully understand their lasting presence, their effect on every future creative endeavor. It's kinda heavy when you think about it.

Or maybe it's just me.