Are you lost or losing?
Or maybe both? Thoughts on how to be, and what to do.
I’m watching Wimbledon. The game is Navarro v. Gauff. Coco Gauff is the current number two ranked player in the world. Right now she’s losing the match. The commentator just called her ‘lost’. So, she’s lost and she’s losing.
It’s a regular human thing, I think, to feel lost and/or as if you are losing. And, yes, it’s possible to experience one without the other, but they so often sit alongside one another. Heavy twins.
In our art, feelings of lostness and losing are natural. We lose connection to our vision, lose clarity and curiosity, lose momentum. When this happens we in turn feel lost. Continuing feels so much harder in these moments. Stumbling in the dark is painful, or at the very least a little bit embarrassing. We’d rather avoid both feelings.
And yet, these are the moments where it’s essential to continue—it’s the only way to move through loss or become unlost. You gotta keep going.
I’m experiencing a moment of creative lostness right now. And of course, I’ve been avoiding all the uncertain and tricky looking paths out—sitting in the gloom while shaking my fist at the gloom.
I’m very much in it. So, this week I’m sharing some thoughts from the eye of the storm on how to be and what to do when you feel this kinda thing.
Big love,Â
LucyÂ
How to be lost and losing
MEMO - Don’t shake yr fist at the gloom, dummy
Okay, firstly and most obviously, do not both sit in the gloom and shake your fist at the gloom. And don’t shake your fist at the gloom at all. I mean it. You’re gonna be angry at yourself for feeling lost? Or for losing? HBD to you! You just got two painful emotions when one would have perfectly sufficient. I’m not saying don’t feel anger if anger comes up btw. I’m saying that if you catch yourself in a story about you shouldn’t be feeling this way and it’s an awful thing to feel this way, you should see if you can put it aside. Give it a shot, go on.
MEMO - If you don’t know the path, you get to try to find the path
Astoundingly enough (at least to me), if you’re lost when you’re making art you don’t have to just stand there and wait for someone to show you the way. No, you get to explore! Even more thrilling is that it’s expected you’ll get it wrong a few times before you get it right. That thing that looks like a path over there might be a path. It might be a shadow. Either way, you’re moving forward or playing with the light.
MEMO - Check what game you’re playing
There are moments where it’s clear you have lost and not won. Any game with a score, for instance. Or, placing a losing bet on said game. Most of life and art is not like this. The winners and losers are far less obvious. If you’re painting yourself as the loser in some capacity, it’s worth asking yourself: ‘according to whose game and by what rules?’. You might find the answers illuminating, even if the game is hard to stop playing.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments: How do you proceed when you feel lost, or like you’re losing?