Not-So-Lost Soul Companion More Hope, Strength, and Strategies for Artists and Artists-At-Heart

Where We Left Off and What Happened Next This is where we left off. In a woods populated with poofy-looking birds perched high in the tallest trees. The poofy birds call out to one another as if to say, "I am here . . . where are you?" You may already know that my first book,The Lost Soul Companion, was really just me perched high on my branch, standing on one leg, singing, "I'm here . . . where are you?" to other artsy, free spirits of all kinds. (Now, it's completely okay if you didn't read the first book. You can read this one and pretend there is no first book if you like and it should still make plenty of sense.) Since then I've been able to compare notes with lots of other Lost Souls. There are many more of these intriguing people than even I had expected, and hearing from them helped me to know what to put in this book. Roll out the bird translation machine and you'll hear a good deal more than just "I am here . . . where are you?" For instance, many still struggle with depression and suicidal feelings. "Every time I get full of really good ideas and am resolute in ambition and full of optimism, this demon keeps trying to drag me straight back into that horrible hell of inactivity, lethargy, can't-cope-ness." "I feel like I'm fated for being a statistic of some kind or another, and it's not a good feeling. It kind of feels like I'm a ball at some carnival booth that someone is trying to win a prize with by throwing it into one of the holes. . . Will they throw me into the hole that says suicide or the one that says liver disease, or perhaps the one marked mental breakdown?" Nearly all feel like they don't quite fit. "I feel constantly driven to think 'too deeply.' . . . I am aware to an extremely high degree that I am highly unusual. No one seems to . . . understand me. . . I live in a very lonely world and only people like 'this' know what I am talking about." Many lost souls are very ambitious. "I want to be successful. I want to be well known. I want the whole world to know I exist. . . " . . . but no matter how hard they try it just doesn't seem like enough . . . "It's like you spend all this time trying to become someone but you seem to be getting nowhere. I have dreamed of being a dancer on Broadway for as long as I can remember. Every time I feel like I might be moving up to the next level, someone is there to check my hopes and dreams at the door." "I hold on to the frail, withering hope that I, too, am here for a worthwhile reason." The Grocery-Store Epiphany Josh and I were in the snack aisle. Crinkling the bags of pretzels aside in our search for those corn chips that are shaped like small spoons. We made it all the way to the potato chips that are baked not fried! with no luck. Somewhere near the bright orange cheese puffs, I thought about the truck driver who had probably driven his semi filled to the top with cases and cases of this hermetically sealed goodness. I wondered what he was doing right at that moment, and I hoped he was happy. The idealist in me likes to imagine a world full of people who are able to do what they love at least seventy-two percent of the time and still have enough to eat and a place to nap. There would be no more wage slaves, only souls who happen to get paid to do what they'd be willing to do for free. Truck drivers like the cheese-puff guy would haul huge shipments of cola and brassieres not because they have to but because they love to--Breaker-one-nine. Chefs would decoratively squirt raspberry sauce on dessert plates--Mmmm, perfect. . . Salesmen would sell, writers would write, doctors would doctor, painters would paint--all because they really, really want to. People would brazenly open their own flower shops--That orchid is EpidendrBrackney, Susan M. is the author of 'Not-So-Lost Soul Companion More Hope, Strength, and Strategies for Artists and Artists-At-Heart' with ISBN 9780440509226 and ISBN 044050922X.