Creatives. We speak of dreams, hope, expectations…But how does all that relate to faith?

In this year of pursuing a career of creativity, one thing I’ve learned is how to keep working when there are only scraps to feed the hope that all these efforts will actually turn any profit.

This, I suppose, could be called faith.

It’s not blindly hoping that things will turn out well. It’s days, months, even years of exertion. Investing time and effort with the relatively baseless belief that it will somehow pay off.

What is that if not faith?

But . . .  

Maybe it’s just gambling. Maybe I’m a faithless gambler. It’s nice and pretty to call it faith, but foolish to forget that I also love giving myself obstacles.

If I overcome them, great, that feels good. I analyzed a risk, acted, and won a reward.

And if I don’t overcome? Well, I’m an optimistic masochist. Here’s just another painful opportunity to pull myself up by my bootstraps and figure out a solution, a new path.

Oh, maybe it’s that. Neither faith nor masochism, but zest for the road less traveled? If I continuously piecemeal my life, then I’ve guaranteed higher odds of staying entertained in puzzle-solving mode (or just staying distracted).

Either way, I’m going for this writing thing. Say it’s not fruitful, say I fail . . . if nothing else, I’ll have learned to work without gratification, to work even though I can’t see what’s ahead of me.

I’ll have learned to prepare myself for futures unknown and hope that the presence of that preparedness creates somehow the thing itself.

And I’ll know that I’ll be ready when said future falls. It may fall with the splat, or it may fall gently at my feet, waiting for a ready step forward.

I suppose we’ll see.

I began here with the intent to figure out my relationship with faith, but it doesn’t seem like that has happened. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.