Notre Dame on fire

The night Notre Dame was in flames, I wrote something on my Instagram. I had wanted to articulate more on it the days after, here in the blog, but I got sick with high temps and I became a zombie…

Here is what I wrote on my feed that night:

I was about to go to bed...And I heard about Notre Dame in Paris. Burning.
Tears sprang in my eyes.
Mind you...I know there are people suffering and hurting and that die every day. I know this is just an object.
But it isn't.
It's...Art. 
It's the expression of something "more" that I think we all crave.
.
Seeing this picture here broke my heart.
.
All of that beauty and divine inspiration.
I have been lucky to be admiring this view from below, in what feels like a lifetime ago. Before the panic. Before agoraphobia.
And I think that anything that can inspire such wonder and awe and heart expansion deserves to be mourned.
.
I was speaking about perspective with a friend earlier. Perspective in my own life. Perspective in how I decide to value myself.
.
Seeing this image here...
God, we are so fragile. Our lives are so fragile. Our art is so fragile. Something so majestic and admired can be destroyed in a few hours. Lost. Gone.
Maybe this event touches me so much because I have been admiring this kind of art since when I was a child. These are the metaphorical shoulders that I stand upon. These great works of art that seem to defy the passing of time. .
And so...
I promise.
I am not going to care about all the futile stuff I have been worrying about.
I am not going to spend my hours thinking about algorithms and visibility and brading. 
I am not going to waste another minute, another breath in any of that. 
Because if everything has to turn into dust and smoke - which will eventually happen, for everything and everyone - I want to know I have created with the utmost reverence, inspiration and intention.
I want my sign into this world to be something more than the fleeting "success". The ego boost.
I want to be here perfecting my craft, my art, and my soul, to offer a spark of what art always brought me. I want my work to be the voice for something higher, something that we all recognize as "home".
.
I will take kissing someone's heart, softly touching their soul for a second - I will take it a million times over being "liked".
And I am posting this here as a reminder to my future self, for when I will lose my path again.
.
All love.

I have spent the past couple of months being worried and frustratred, but not really willing to share it openly. Just that day I had finally opened up with a friend.
I have been stressing about social media. About visibility.
The fact that my visibility and likes have gone so down had me in an uncomfortable place.
What am I doing wrong? Why do people not seem to care much about what I do?
What should I do to make them see me?
This kind of reasoning never brings me to good places, and I am totally aware of it.
On the other side, not only I financially rely on socials to sell, but I also have quite the self esteem issues - working on them, getting better, but it’s still a soft spot for me.
I tried to look at all the people promising you to teach you the best way to increase engagement, and I felt miserable.
I don’t feel like “branding”. Studying the appearence of my feed. Being consistent. Planning.
I am not a brand, I am a person, an artist, and I need my online presence to reflect that. I need the spontaneity. The authenticity.
All of this thinking and stressing didn’t help my creative process - OF COURSE - so on top of it all I also felt miserable because I missed my safe space.

When I saw Notre Dame burning…
In a way it opened my eyes.
It connected to something I was talking about with my friend just a few hours before, in some way.

The point is…why do I create?
I do it for the likes, the fleeting sense of “fame”? For feeling worthy and seen?

No.
I do it because I need it. Because nothing else makes me feel as whole.
I do it because I crave to create beauty.

To see Notre Dame burning…well, it showed me in quite a strong way how everything is really fleeting.
Even such a majestic building, awe inspiring, centuries old.
If brought my focus back on the present and on what matters.
In 10 years the likes I get today won’t give me pleasure or meaning.
But maybe in 10 years I will remember the joy someone shared with me about something I made for them, and that will fill my heart.
In 10 years, if my hands will still be busy creating, then I know I will be happy.

How much more can I ask for, really?

(And yes, despite the killer flu, my creativity is back)