You are only as alive as your art.

Keep it breathing.

Life doesn't always feel the same, but that doesn't mean you are doing it wrong. Living is just as tough as fighting for what matters to your soul. But if you can fight for what your heart truly aches for, the struggle becomes more meaningful, and though it gets hard, the view becomes more beautiful as you keep moving against all the hardships that life throws your way. Find what you love and let it save you incessantly.

I see people wanting to run behind a well-curated version of life where everything feels sorted. But no, that is not how we can discover ourselves. With that sort of mindset, whatever you discover about your life and yourself won't be real. Yeah, the mess we feel about our lives is real, it doesn’t feel right sometimes, you wish something hadn't happened the way it happened, you ache for something that has long gone out of your hands. But none of this defines who you can not be. It won't crash down the hope you'd kept hoarding for your soul for so long against all your fears and doubts, against what others made you feel. You won’t dim your light even when you know the unknown is pitch dark. That is how strong we are all as souls. You may ask, then, why do we feel like a mess, though we innately know we are made strong by our souls? It’s simple. We assume our lives have become a mess, when in reality, we don’t even realize it was made to be like one by our own minds. It takes deeper consciousness to accept this truth, and I wish I could try to understand it one soft essay at a time.

We keep carrying the weight of our own ghosts that we don't easily talk about to others or even to ourselves. It's hard to digest what we'd lost along the way in the hope of making peace with our lives. We don’t confess, we hide. We don’t talk, we get numb. But there’s a breaking point for everything that you silently suppress. You struggle, it’s not seen, because you never tell. It gets under your skin, finding a quiet home but it moves with you everywhere, no matter how much ever you try to forget it, it bubbles up one day, on any random day, and you helplessly cry, not because it hurts, but because your body doesn’t know how to hold it on anymore. You avoid this sign, and you numb it even more. This cycle goes on like a loop, but then one day, you realize, you have silently found the courage to rise above anything that tried to bury you in numbing acquiescence. You keep wishing for a change, but right now you are here, and here is more beautiful, even when it seems slow. Even when it is not fully lived. Even when it is not like what you'd imagined in your head. It’s okay if you are easily prone to being scared by life. It's only the passage of time that seems to fly fast, not your will to live peacefully. You have always been aching for peace, and it won't leave you alone ever. It’s okay if you end up feeling like falling short more often; that's only a sort of illusion. I am here to remind you, you are right where you have to be. Just let life happen to you slowly, because rushing won't make the journey meaningful or enjoyable. But I still wonder why everything has to make us feel like we are running late for the lives we dream in our heads, for the lives we keep aching to build one day. Your time on earth is never meant to be hurried by callousness or some narrow passage where you are left to feel unseen and unhappy. It has to be the light that carries you forward, even when everything turns darker and unknown when you further.

The only time when I can really slow down time is when I concentrate on listening to my soul. When I pay dearly attention to all my yearning to write, draw, and let life happen to me slowly by doing what I love without the weight of time dtopping on my shoulders. Your time here is never meant to scare you. Never meant to make your life harder to live. It is only trying to show us we have little time left to find what our soul needs. But that doesn't have to make us feel heavy all the time. Instead, we can wisely choose to fuel our times by adding value to our souls. By doing what we love. By doing what actually makes us feel still and yet on life. It's okay if others can not understand what gives you the purpose to live. If you can still spend time on figuring out what your silent yearnings are, then you are already winning it. You don't need anyone to clap what you are witnessing at all your 2 a.m. when you are all awake, to show up for the one inside you. This attention matters way more than you can imagine. For me, it has kept me going regardless of the mundanity that we all spiral down to occasionally.
The work below is my recent graphite portrait. She is my sister, next to her is her husband, and their charming son, who is my dearest nephew. I was extremely delighted to draw them. The love I had for them kept me so close to the work. It always feels so special to draw my loved ones. I can't explain how happy it makes me feel when nobody sees what I honestly ache to do from my heart. Also, I never allow myself to deny when it is a calling of what my soul dearly longs to do for the ones I love so much. My expression of love lies here. When I draw the people I love the most, the process becomes very much easier and deeper. It gives so much happiness that i can not explain through words. This work will stay close to my heart forever. And I wish it won't be erased by time.

I love you three so much!

Now coming back to why life feels like scaring all the time ahead, yeah, it is terrifying to know how little we have lived without realizing what all the time that went down really meant. How has it added to our lives, or how has it pushed us enough to find ourselves so far?. When I turn back and see, I know I haven't had much of great times except when I used to draw for hours late at night. I haven't valued much of the time that went unnoticed. I now realize how less meaningful life can become if we do not spend our time doing what we love. Or spending our years not really knowing whether we are striving for what we honestly ache to do. Academics are not my entire life. Proving to others that I am capable financially is not my only goal. And spending my whole life on what my soul won’t be able to merge with is not what I should be striving for.

You are not here for the hustle, and your art is not here to match the algorithm. Do not let the world scare you or your art. You move slowly. The life you seek is found only within, when you silently choose not to pressurize your art for anyone. It's okay to attend your call slowly. That's still attending. Do not convince yourself otherwise. I see you trying.  And I know you have been seeing yourself too, even on the hardest days. Do not just forget that truth. 
Sending this post to remind you, you are still valuable wherever you are in life right now, you are still reaching to know who you are becoming to your soul, even when it's getting harder every time, even when it's taking too much time. You are still trying to talk to the one in you, even when all the noise from the outside makes you forget your voice. You are still holding on to what dearly matters to your soul, even when it is taking every ounce of your energy to bring it on real amidst the hustle and chaos. You are doing great even when you can not see it for yourself. And there’s a little part in you that will not give up on you ever. Sticking to it, is like sticking to what will keep you and your art breathing in peace. And that will not come without the cost of surrendering your life to your little soul.
Whenever life begins to feel heavy, or something like not easy to grasp, I turn to my core aching. Perhaps, it turns to me. It shows the way. I embrace myself through art. It doesn't ask much. Just a heart full open to follow its silent calling. The sheer act of drawing and knowing that there is something desperately asking for my attention, adds so much depth to my little existence here. I don't think I could ask for anything more, except slowly building on these little curiosities to find myself a home in me. I can not explain to you how healing it is on days when the question of existence becomes so intimidating. What we live for, lives for us. Maybe it is in our hands to help it help us. Maybe we should listen to our souls more closely when it is trying to tell us something. When it doesn’t complain much about what's next. When it just asks us to yearn a little more for what brings peace to our being, what will set our souls free from the pointless hustle we keep carrying mindlessly.

It took me almost a month to finish posting this letter. I couldn't settle down with it easily. I have been sick too. But today, as I am done hitting this publish button, it feels like a dark cloud slowly lifting off from my head, leaving a trail of hope and grace in the face of what was stopping me bit by bit every day. Imperfections may still reside in you, it resides in me, but please understand it won't stop us from writing or expressing your thoughts on the art we create. It's okay if you selfishly take more time to let your mind and body rest, but realize your soul will never allow you to stop trying. It never asks you to quit. It keeps the ache growing and only allows you to finally realize that there are little joys that you will keep coming back to, no matter how badly you slow down your efforts. This is where your authenticity resides, in silently showing up for the one in you, who looks for ways to see herself even when the going gets tough, even when no one chooses to see who she is trying to become for the one in her. You keep seeing her. You keep building her. I am with you in all your little pursuits for reaching your soul. Just keep your heart aching for everything that you and your soul are earnestly yearning to do.

I love you more with every post. Though I know I have very few readers here, each one of you keep my art beating just as much as I keep it beating for myself. We all make a big difference in ways we cannot see right now. But what I have to say matters with every slow essay I send you, even if it gets really hard to process what's going on in my head. Life is beautiful until you see it as one. Writing here may be, is my first little bravest step towards making it beautiful. What we share through words creates magic even if we cannot open it all with our hands. It's a gift wrapped up with full of love and surprises yet to be unboxed. And our art, whatever it may be you ache to do, is nothing less to be taken as a side hustle, it must take the centre stage, and we are not alone. I have been carrying the dream slowly, though it has a million miles to go. but let us not see our yearnings as destinations but as journeys that will keep us moving on and on, falling in love and hope again and again..even when we fail, trying again and again and again, perhaps that’s the whole point…

With Peace,

Revathi Ganesh.