Keep Feeding It

September 3, 2025


Passion doesn’t just arrive fully formed, roaring like a wildfire and burning forever without help. It flickers at first, like a hesitant match in the wind, alive, but fragile. It glows with promise, but it’s not self-sustaining. That’s the mistake many artists make in the beginning: thinking that if the passion is real, it’ll last on its own. That it will carry you through every dry spell, every doubt, every long, empty hour in front of a blank canvas. But the truth is, passion is not a one-time spark. It’s a fire. And fires need feeding.

To be an artist is to commit to a lifelong practice of tending that fire. You feed it with everything you have. With inspiration, found in the rhythm of strangers walking by, in a line from a poem that won’t leave your mind, in the way the shadows fall across your bedroom floor. With education, books, conversations, failures, mentors, mistakes. With excitement, the electric kind that makes your chest buzz when a new idea crashes in uninvited and refuses to leave. With time, the rarest fuel of all, and the one that most easily slips away if you’re not vigilant. Because time spent on your craft isn’t a luxury. It’s the oxygen. Without it, nothing burns.

And yet, the fire doesn’t demand perfection. It doesn’t need you to always know what you’re doing. It just needs you to show up. To try. To care enough to keep putting logs on the pile—even when you’re exhausted, uninspired, or full of doubt. Especially then. Those are the moments when the fire flickers low and quiet, testing your commitment. That’s when most people quit. But if you stay, if you kneel by the embers and offer what you have, no matter how small, the fire will catch again.

Artists don’t always feel inspired. They’re not always brimming with ideas or pouring out brilliance. What separates those who endure from those who fade isn’t talent or luck, it’s whether they keep feeding the fire. Whether they keep finding fuel in the everyday, keep seeking beauty even in chaos, keep choosing to light the match again and again.

Because passion doesn’t die in a single moment. It starves quietly, over time, when neglected. But just the same, it can be reignited. It can be nourished back to life with care, with curiosity, with love for the process and the story only you can tell.