Gifts and Risk.

"No true gift is free of risk." - Ida Benedetto

Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating the US holiday of Thanksgiving! To everybody else, happy November 28, 2019. Are you one of the billion people told that every day is a gift? We should be thankful for today because there's no guarantee of tomorrow? That we should learn to practice more gratitude?

If you are like most people I know, indeed like I am every day, you see in yourself great potential. You see a you that's waiting to come alive. But you also might not see the means to make it happen. Maybe you don't have the money, the right network, the right degree, you came from the wrong side of town, people remind you that reality is so much different than your dreams, and you barely see a way out. There are thousands upon thousands of reasons why you are not everything you could be, and it's hard to give thanks when life doesn't give you much to go on. The one thing you do have is an existence.

A risk is a threat to destabilize your existence, the way things are now. As earlier mentioned, you have several reasons why you are not coming alive at this moment; your life doesn't allow for it.

A gift is an act that fulfills a need. To give a gift is to disrupt one's life to show them something better. To receive a gift requires the recipient to allow themselves to be vulnerable enough to have their being "disrupted" for something better.

As an artist, you give gifts to your audience. You let them know they're not alone, you offer a new way to think, you highlight the hardships or successes of others, and you help us become alive through your work. Your gift requires us to destabilize our lives for a moment and allow your work to come in and show us something better. Never lose sight of what you do, how you do it, and how it impacts people.

I'm thankful for you and the gifts you share with others to help them see the "something better."