There is a performance we do in our daily lives.
Every second of our lives is about one thing: finding ourselves.
Because only there can we find the infinite, the unknowable, G-d.
Every step we take, everything we learn, every phrase of Torah, every good action, every bit of pain. All of it is part of this search.
We work so hard looking for that infinity we feel slipped away when our immortal souls descended into physical bodies. Into a World where the only real truth is concealed.
In this World, our souls search for their perceived-lost divine nature.
So we work. We toil. We try.
But behind the scenes, slowly, a demon begins to take over our beautiful goal.
It does so in the slyest of ways.
It knows that given the greatness of our soul’s desire for G-d, nothing it throws at us can truly distract us. There is only one way it can steal the life force we intended to pour into our mission.
It begins to dress itself as what we seek.
Slowly, it adds layers to our vision, so that before we realize it, we are searching for it rather than what we truly seek.
What is this demon?
The image of success.
The false G-d.
A vision of who we are when we finally become what we are meant to be.
There was the sleight of hand.
Did you notice it?
Become.
Suddenly, the goal is not to discover what is already there. It is to build something that does not exist.
And that tiny shift, so small that almost no one notices it, moves us just a degree away from our trajectory. But as we continue to pursue it, that small shift widens the gap from our initial goal.
So after years of searching, and many times achieving, we turn around and realize we have been chasing mirages on the horizon.
Because we had to become.
Because we had to change.
Because we had to look outwards.
We had to find something in this World, which is constantly eluding us.
And in searching outside, we sacrifice our selves, on the altar of success. To a false god that promises us rewards.
Instead, we must view the demon in the face and recognize its trickery.
Yes, we should continue to strive.
Yes, we should grow.
But we should bear in mind the deepest truth of all: what we seek was never to become something we are not. It was to discover what we already are.
As the Zohar states: Israel, the Torah, and Hashem are truly one.
We see this truth not only in ourselves, but in the World around us.
We can tell when someone is doing something because of their own agenda. We can feel it. Something about it does not reach us.
Nothing anyone creates can truly resonate with someone else unless it comes from an authentic place.
True art. True success. The things humanity remembers. The things we tell stories about. The things we immortalize in stone.
The classics.
Those things succeed because at their core they carry something intrinsically human, intrinsically divine.
They carry real human experience.
They are the way the infinity contained within a person finds expression into this World, shedding light into the darkness.
So when someone else sees it, it calls to that deepest part of them, the very place from which their own desire comes.
It calls to the same depth from which it came, and it awakens something. A deep truth within whoever experiences it.
It is something already inside, waiting to be allowed out.
Like Michelangelo said, “The sculpture is already in the granite, I just remove the excess.”
That is the distinction between a masterpiece and vain content.
The expression of our inside, the revelation of our inner G-dliness, the outpouring of our very sense of life. That is art.
Nothing can replicate it.
No matter how we try to imitate it, it always falls short.
So we try to mimic previous art. We study what the market is looking for. We analyze what performs. We try to understand what people will like, what will sell, what will get attention.
But it does not succeed.
Because art is who we are.
And only when it is who we are is it truly art.
Because it conveys what it means to be human. It shares a human experience. It transcends intellect.
It is a bit of you in me.
A bit of your portion of eternity that you share, and thereby allow me to enter and add to my own portion.
It is only by searching within that we will ever find happiness.
And I am writing this as someone trying, at this very moment, to apply my own advice.
Trying to express what is inside.
Trying to talk to myself.
Trying to write without getting carried away by what will sell.
I want to express what is inside without letting the false god of likes, success, and fame distract me from discovering my essence and shining it into the World.
Because the sculpture is already inside.
We just have to remove the excess.