Have you ever had someone come up and ruin what you were trying to create? Have you ever had someone actually try to stop you from your path of creation and evolution? If you haven’t; great! Good for you. If you have, then you possess an understanding of what it feels like to experience that halting of your process and that hindrance in the becoming of what you believe you were destined to become.
 
Perhaps an even better question is, have you ever done anything that hurt, damaged, or halted the creative or evolutionary process of someone else? If you have, shame on you. Because with that action, you have, if even in some small way, hurt the greater evolution of this place we call life.
 
I know I have experienced situation where people have tried to damage my creative process. Particularly in the film industry, there have been people that I actually went out of my way to try to help break into the industry, yet, they threw or tried to throw a monkey wrench in my gears. It didn’t feel good. In some cases, it really hurt the project and/or my reputation.
 
Hell, I’ve even had girls get mad at me and smash a very valuable guitar or two. There have been people that have attempted to sully my name in the public forum. But, those are all stories for a different time.
 
Personally, I think back to this one girlfriend I had a million years ago. She was a magazine illustrator by trade. At least she was for a while. She was one of those buckets full of adrenaline, based mostly on the chaotic and dare I say negative. She had a lot of destructive energy surrounding her and she chose to hang out with some people that permeated adverse forces that she couldn’t seem to shake. In fact, she did some crazy fucked up shit. I always wished I had met her before she had made the choices she had made. But, that’s a whole other story. And, this was all before I learned, though they may be beautiful, and they may fill your life with that promise of ecstasy, leading to oblivion, never, never, never fall for a psycho bitch.  
 
Anyway, this one day she was doing her thing, raging in the way she raged. It just got to me. She/we were by her drafting table where she was in the process of creating one of her illustrations, and smack, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I intentionally knocked over her jar of turpentine onto the illustration that she was painting with oil paints. Then, I left.
 
That was the only time I can knowingly think of that I ever hurt anyone’s creative anything.
 
I get it, that’s a small thing, and she easily repainted whatever it was, for whatever magazine, she was creating it for. But, it still was a very-very bad thing as it stopped a creative something. Even though she created the situation, I was the one in the wrong. And, it made me feel very bad.
 
Now, take a look at your own life. First of all, who has intentionally done something to you that damaged your creative process or evolution? Why did they do it? Why did you allow them to be so close to you that they could do it?
 
Spread this out to the next level now. Who have you intentionally done something to that hurt their creation(s), their artistic, or their life evolution? Why did you do it? Really, why did you do it? What did it make you feel like to be able to do it? What did it do for your life because you did do it? More importantly, what impact did what you did have on the life and the creative evolution of the individual that you did that something to? If you hurt them—if you hurt their life or their life evolution what did you ever do to fix that damage? Did you do anything? If you didn’t, why didn’t you?
 
You see, life is really about one thing. It’s about creation. Whether that creation is based in the arts, or being a carpenter and creating structures for people to live and work in, being a mechanic, keeping that car running, or creating a new life with the person you love—your life is defined by what you create. But, if you halt or hurt that/any creation then that becomes the definition of your life? And, if that is the definition of your life, why do you believe good things should happen to you?
 
Kinda funny… I remember my friend was having his birthday party. These other friends of his threw this elaborate function at their house. Tons of people were there. I never had a birthday party but if I ever had one this is the way I would envision it. Anyway… My friend’s mother was there. As I had known this guy since we were kids, I knew his mother forever. Just as she was about to leave, she comes up to me smacks me hard in the arm. You know, just one of those loving gestures. The only problem was, I had a full glass of red wine in my hand. From her smack, it went flying all over the place. All over the white carpet of the house where the party was being held. My friend’s mother freaked. I freaked. My lady, who was standing next to me, freaked.
 
Immediately, like out of nowhere, the lady whose house it was comes up with a bottle of club soda in her hand. She poured it on the carpet and with a rag it was like the red wine magically disappeared. Wow! “This is nothing. I’ve cleaned up much worse than this,” she states.
 
If only life could be that easy and compete, where any stain someone else makes on your life could be so magically erased. I wish it were that way. But sadly, it is not.
 
The moral to the story, don’t hurt people’s creations or their creative process or their life. Because a little bit of club soda is not going to erase the damage you have created. And, if you have damaged the creative life process of anyone, the entire evolution of all life, humanity, and the arts has be altered and hurt forever. Keep that in mind.