After searching for an answer, the big reveal is, yes.

I kept asking myself over and over again, Why now? Why the hell now?

In October of last year, I fulfilled a life-long dream of moving to New York City. After months of journal writing and mulling it over, I made the decision it was the perfect time. The winds of change propelled me forward, and magically things fell into place. My adventure manifested, and I was challenging myself doing new things and working hard. In February, as a result of a written piece I submitted, I got an interview with The New York Times, in one of their regular feature columns.

And then … BOOM.

After a short, four-and-a-half months of New York City WOW, disaster struck. The greatest city in the world suddenly crippled. Its beating heart of creative energy, suffering cardiac arrest was left an ICU patient with no visitors allowed.

Without notice, and cut off from all the art and culture I was drawing inspiration from, I found myself alone in quarantine. Like everyone else, I was left reeling in a state of confusion and fear. At the same time, I kept wondering why had this happened when prior to the pandemic all systems were go? My adventure was looking more like a quest, and my biggest trial was facing an invisible foe who could, quite literally, take me down. I was going to have to dig deep to answer this one.

Nagged by this question of why, I, nevertheless, held steady and made the best use of my time writing, painting, reading, and observing.

And then one day going through some old notes, I came across a quote I had written down . It was from a list of “68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice” to the young, compiled by author Kevin Kelly, who helped launch Wired magazine. Even though I’m old, it hit like an resuscitative electrical charge:

“When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problem, no progress.”

Well, I certainly was experiencing a crisis, but how was I going to change my perception and make it positive? I had come to the city to foster my own curiosity and creativity. Maybe quarantine and sheltering in place were just the environments I needed to buckle down and make real progress with my writing and painting. Feeding a passion takes solitude and focus.

So I dove in and keenly observed the changing world around me. Every day I wrote or painted with an energy that surprised me. I discovered a new painting medium using recycled trash and even submitted a couple of articles to different publications.

I had nothing to lose.

But it was hard.

Any creative endeavor or change of habit requires us to access our higher nature. And you will know you are on to something because resistance, in its many forms, will rear its ugly head . For me, resistance comes from things like Netflix, social media, and Zoom constantly calling me to come play. Of course, I enjoy these things, but only after I’ve completed some work time. Wrestling resistance requires a Herculean effort, but staying focused yields results.

My confidence kept growing.

As further proof that I was on the right track, I happened to read through more notes I had taken several years ago and was jolted by another message that was waiting for me. In Letters to a Young Poet #7, written in 1904, the poet Rilke( only 27 himself) writes back to a young man looking for advice about his writing. Rilke’s response echoes the very same stumbling blocks of resistance and hard work. That in his practice of solitude, the young man might find himself distracted by the conventions of his day, might be tempted to take the easy route rather than trust in what is difficult, which would reveal his true artistic self:

“…it is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts it, everything, in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason to do it.”

So crisis and disaster have struck, and I’ve found the answer to my question, Why now? I’m choosing to see this problem of a pandemic as a personal challenge in making progress towards becoming the best that I can be.

I’m currently working on a series of paintings I hope to show in the near future and writing articles I hope to see published. I’m even entering a large scale commissioning art program here in NYC. Completing the application has been mind bending; I know it’s a long shot.

Working on it is hard.

But when I hit the send button to submit my proposal, regardless of the outcome, I will be happy I gave it my all, knowing…

“…that something is difficult must be one more reason to do it.”