I want to be all used up when I die. {George Bernard Shaw on taking creative action}

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one…the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

 

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

 

Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” 

 

~ George Bernard Shaw

I woke up in March as if by accident with a thin, wrinkled heart shaped as a question mark that not even the most positive, eloquent affirmations could resize. I shivered at the thought of needing surgery. I thought I’d try a wisdom transfusion instead.

It’s interesting how we can go from being our greatest heroes and saviors to even down below villains—some sort of unrecognizable new race of wet rat humanoids in a post-postmodern corner watching the acid rain fall by.

Is it okay to get tired of getting tired? 

Among other timely reminders to “stop the emotional propaganda of feeling manipulation” and “become your own existential detective,” while on my way to be hanged, George Bernard Shaw tapped me gently on the shoulder. I thought I was seeing a ghost.

Irish playwright, music and literary critic, and co-founder of the London School of Economics, he was also a novelist and short-story writer with a socialist ardent passion for the working class and a sharp comedic taste imbued in most of his writing. An advocate of equal rights and a healthy lifestyle, he is the only person to have been awarded both the Nobel Prize in Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938)—for his work on the film Pygmalion, a screen adaptation of one his plays.

His words are swords that cut through all excuses:

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

He became his own living example, rising against the scarcity of his circumstances (only too familiar a scenario to most artists) through diligence and persistence, diligence and persistence, diligence and persistence…

“Whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves, and wiser people are full of doubts.”

It is estimated that we have around 60,000 thoughts a day. Approximately 95% of our thoughts are the same as the day before and (this is where it gets ugly)… 85% of these thoughts are negative! Believe me, I don’t run on smileys, but I didn’t sign up for all these devils either.

The design of our lives, the carving of our raw potential begins in our head. Redirecting our ship in the direction we actually want to go is the simplest, most difficult thing in the world. Because it requires moving muscles we didn’t even know we had. But without unprecedented action there can be no change, and every action is born out of a prevailing thought.

What has taken me two painful decades to understand and still requires high daily doses of practice, is that there is no Reality. There are realities. There are thoughts. And above everything You, there is Your Will.

You are not your thoughts. You are the master of your thoughts—the boss of all the processes that amount to the temporary, dynamic and unique human experience named You.

The ultimate You consists in your will—your freedom is reduced to a decision (or thousands of decisions). And this will that is You has the final say over the rest of your life. As long as you live, You’ll always have the last word.

2000 years ago, in a battlefield, Marcus Aurelius—one of the earliest champions for self-mastery and wholeness—wrote in his journal:

“Take me and cast me where you will; I shall still be possessor of the divinity within me, serene and content.” 

Echoing Henley’s Invictus, You truly are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. Nobody will save you because nobody else can. You are the only one whose voice your demons recognize. Therefore, the only one who has the authority to summon them.

Your life could certainly go on without your signature, or your intentional design, but will it really be yours? And the worst part is that the rain will fall on you, on me, on everyone, either way: whether we’re walking our path or somebody else’s.

In the end, there is no movie waiting to be watched. So if life demands that we make our own indie production, shouldn’t we at least try turning our beautiful mess into something we’d die to watch?

It goes like this:

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

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