On Closing The Gap

I - perhaps not unlike you, dear reader - often find myself staring at the gap between the life I want and the one I wake up to each day. From the outside, my life might look like a dream scenario to some—an artist with skill, autonomy, and purpose. But from within, it is filled with constant castigation and self-directed resentment over how often I fall short of my own standards. Given all I’ve come to learn about stillness and tranquility through my studies in mindfulness or stoicism, you would think I’d more readily forgive myself, self-correct, and move forward. Instead, like most, I dull the sting of self-criticism through distraction and short-sighted indulgences.

For all my efforts to present myself as linguistically articulate and artistically competent, I assure you that beneath it all, in me there is still an anxious, scared, self-conscious, and often overwhelmed child. That same little boy striving to decode and understand the world around him through drawing and recording it who dreams of achieving difficult things, even if he doesn’t fully comprehend what it takes to realize them. But he dreams nonetheless. And for that, I should be patient with him, allow him his occasional moments of indulgent weakness.

However, like any child, he also needs discipline. Not the punishment of self-resentment, nor the rigidity of perfectionism, but a discipline rooted in guidance—the same way a father corrects his son, not to break him, but to shape him with care. The gap between who I am and who I want to be is not an enemy to be conquered. It is a child to be raised.

What if, instead of resenting my shortcomings, I accepted them as part of the process? What if the discipline I seek isn’t about eradicating imperfection, but about shaping it—just as I reshape the clay form when it isn’t where it should be? Not expecting immediate perfection, but trusting that refinement comes through steady, patient work. Just as I would not scold a child for stumbling as he learns to walk, I should not resent the form for being unfinished—it only asks for steady hands to shape it.

The gap may never close entirely. Perhaps it isn’t meant to. Perhaps it exists not as a flaw, but as a necessary space—the place where ambition and reality converse, where effort and grace meet. And if I can accept that, if I can walk that space with patience rather than frustration, then maybe the life I dream of and the life I have are not opposing forces, but collaborators in the same labors toward a common magnum opus.

So I will keep shaping and renegotiating the forms, both in my art and in myself instead of focusing on the gap between what is and what "ought to be." And maybe, just maybe, the shaping itself is the result.