The morning sun suggests Spring, and promise, and moving forward. Hard not to love life when this is the first thing you see.

I gave a talk last night to a bunch of creative people about creativity and change, and about the challenge of living a creative life as a writer, artist or musician in an increasingly Corporate and pressure-filled society.

I left thinking about security, and what it really is.

In America, there is this developing notion that security is about a corporate job, a health plan, an IRA, a lot of bandwidth and data streaming, a fat IRA and a good pension.

I think not. People in the corporate life are not secure. They increasingly live in fear of their jobs, their health plans, their retirement options. I believe the creative person is often more secure than that, because we control more of our lives, have more freedom and can be more fulfilled.

Is security about money and the stock market and budgets and  health plans? I don’t think so. The people I know with corporate jobs, health plans and chunky IRA accounts are among the most frightened and insecure and unhappy people that I know. That kind of security is temporal, and in the hands of others. I want to control my life, and not live under other people’s definitions of health. I want to be fulfilled for as long as I can, live my life, monitor the number of things I am told I must have to be safe – like medical tests, weather alerts, xenophic news media, contentious politicians and news analysts.

Security is an internal thing. It comes from being authentic, from facing the truth about oneself, from listening to your own body and to people who really care about you, rather than those who take money from you to “protect” you from your very self. In this world, many things – strangers, playgrounds, food, farmers who grow food and care for animals, your body, the weather, the world, the news – is an enemy to be kept at bay for a price, a potential liability or lawsuit,  or a politically expedient impulse to be controlled by legislation. We are separate from our own world, disconnected from the very people we are supposed to need, deprived of good and secure work.

I love the creative life. It is difficult, unnerving, filled with voices in the night and unpredictability and rejection. It is wonderful, enthralling, challenging and deeply satisfying. Security, I have learned, can only come from within. We will all catch something, and pass on, and soon enough. Our lives can be cut short at any time. In the meantime, I am increasingly secure in the idea that I am living my own life, for better or worse, and not someone else’s idea of what my life should be.

That seems like security to me.