ee cummings

so my boss recently posted a print out of this quote on her door,

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." by E.E. Cummings.

In passing she stated, 'it does take courage . . not to be who your parents want you to be . .' something that of course resonated with me . . and for that matter, not to become who my spouse wants me to be . . or my siblings . . or my friends . . and then a few days later it dawned on me . . even who i want myself to be . . could even that expectation deter my true self from forming . . .

Arts will dictate that being who you are is necessary to produce authentic and meaningful art . . at least the arts that i am interested in . .

Now this true self, being who you really are, may be something terrible, something negative and often times something dysfunctional . . because lets face it . . how many functional families are really out there . . especially those in our culture struggling with acculturation and the double lives we sometimes lead to appease conformity in america and traditionalism at home . . .

so in this respect, the true self . . while being able to produce intense prose, pastels, and poetry . . . may live unhappy and torn lives . . .

does it have to be that one must make a choice between being your true turmoiled self in order to survive in the arts, or can it be that growth of the self into who you'd like to be to live a happier and more stable life might still produce moving art pieces . . .

in that respect, in reference to cummings' quotation, does it really take courage to be who you really are, the depressed, perfectionist who finds comfort in arguing and revenge, or does it take even more courage to become who you want to be, the insightful, emotional realist who accepts her flaws and struggles everyday to be a better person . . .

don't i just feel like the lion in the wizard of oz.