Is There Anything More Humiliating Than Desire?

On envy, the Year of the Fire Horse, and why I’m back on my bullshit doing The Artist’s Way

I can listen to music again. Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” specifically has been on repeat and some Enya, and I am mentally still there with Margot on the moors, windswept, haunted, feeling everything at once. I’ve seen your takes on the film. I’m staying in my body and my heart. I loved it. I’ve already seen it twice.

For years I couldn’t really listen to music at all. I relied on playlists other people made for me, or on podcasts, podcasts are just NOISE, but sometimes necessary noise. I still need it. A close friend recently came out of a stretch of depression and said, “I can listen to music again,” and it landed in my body like both a diagnosis and a hope. OF COURSE! You cannot fully feel art when you are avoiding your own expression. Here is a playlist I’m currently listing to though.

I just set the stage for where I am this week, add a lingering cold that Monica Heisey gives me permission to feel apocalyptic about in her Substack “Top 10 Worst Feelings.” I too feel a little in jail and in need of visitors. This essay will do. So will the Tell Me Lies finale. My take: we all have Lucy in us. I probably have more than most. And Steven needs to actually go to jail.

But meanwhile, How is my algorithm doing you asked? Well my entire algo has abruptly gone Chinese

TikTok and my group chats are deep in a phase where everyone is adopting Chinese wellness habits: TCM, house slippers, congee, earlier bedtimes, herbs for everything. The calendar apparently came with it. Suddenly it’s the Year of the Fire Horse everywhere. Some people (many on my group chats) don’t even seem to realize it’s the Lunar New Year. It’s just another spiritual meme moment on the internet. Or maybe it’s collective consciousness, Chinese New Year edition.

Last year was the year of the Snake, very shedding-in-private energy according to TikTok. This year the Fire Horse is supposed to move forward, steady and purposeful. And yet my horse is still in the stable, pacing. Full of energy with nowhere to go. Which, if I’m honest, feels a lot like desire wearing an envy costume.

I personally follow the Jewish calendar and have great respect for other calendars that follow the moon. Everyone is looking up at the same moon and drawing different conclusions, some even concluding that it’s not real! We’ve just entered the month of Adar, when you are instructed to increase joy, not wait for it, increase it. At the same time it’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when people voluntarily give something up. Ramadan is beginning too, a month structured around fasting, discipline, and reflection.

Different traditions, same assignment.

Focus. Restrain. Pay attention. Choose deliberately.

However you slice it, or faith it, this feels less like coincidence than a collective tightening of the lens. A season of commitment. Of deciding what actually deserves your life force.

All of this pushed me back toward one of my favorite containers for creativity.

I am, once again, back on my bullshit doing The Artist’s Way. It’s not bullshit. That was just fun to type.

The Artist’s Way

If you don’t know, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is a 12-week creative program built around daily writing, weekly solo play, and exercises designed to surface fear, envy, procrastination, and creative shame. I’ve done two full rounds and kept up morning pages for years. I love the structure.

But do I feel like an artist yet? Absolutely not.

And that makes me furious. Envious. Restless. I’m wanting again and that is both humiliating and holy

Nothing exposes desire faster than structure. The minute you commit to a practice, everything you’ve been avoiding shows up. For me, that thing is actually making things. Not supporting. Not curating. Not helping someone else midwife their brilliance into the world. Actually making something myself, which feels both obvious and strangely forbidden, like I might get in trouble for it.

I texted a few friends to join me and sent the quote that wrecks me:
“Sometimes we find ourselves hanging out near the door of our dreams without ever going in.”

I felt physically sick being that seen.

I also felt seen this week devouring Belle Burden’s memoir Strangers. At one point I felt personally divorced and left with three kids in Martha’s Vineyard during Covid. Honestly, it almost sounded fun. Art can do that.

In week one Julia talks about core beliefs that hold you back, the invisible rules about who you’re allowed to be and what you’re allowed to want.

Some of mine are that I can’t spell, I have nothing to say, and that it’s humiliating to want to be an artist. English wasn’t my first language, I’m a true ESL kid, so writing felt risky from the start. Safer not to try. Talking is so much easier! I have the gift of gab and sometimes gossip!

It felt like a secret. And that secret made me especially good at supporting other people’s creativity, seeing their brilliance clearly while staying just outside the spotlight myself. I share my negative believes so you can locate yours YOU ARE WELCOME!

Cameron calls this a “shadow artist,” someone who supports other people’s creativity instead of claiming their own — the producer who never writes, the curator who never paints, the person everyone calls to make something happen but who quietly cannot answer, “What are you making?” I’ve surrounded myself with some of the best artists, and standing in their light has kept me very warm for a very long time.

Starting this Substack feels like stepping into a spotlight I can’t turn off. And honestly, how thorny is it to even try? Desire is humiliating mostly because it refuses to stay hidden.

So I returned to this process.

This time I’m doing it with a small group of close friends, and I’m leading it. It’s one of those self-help things I love because it incorporates the divine. And oh, do I love the divine. It’s wonderful if you publish the book or record the song or finish the thing. The point isn’t applause it’s alignment. There are 12 weeks of this, so get ready to ride with me!

Maybe this is what Adar and the Year of the Fire Horse are asking of us this season. Not to manufacture joy, but to notice where it already exists. Joy is found, not fought for. All of this feels like it’s meeting me exactly where I am, still in the stable with my Fire Horse, discovering small, surprising routes back to joy through a creative life.

So if you’re feeling restless, envious, overly tender, or like your life force is pacing inside a stall, maybe nothing has gone wrong. Maybe you are simply full of something that wants to move, maybe even gallop.

I support you. And I’m learning to hold my own reins, too.
In Adar, we don’t chase joy. We make space for it to find us. Sometimes that means staying in the stable until we’re ready.

If you want to do The Artist’s Way with a group

I’ve found group versions incredibly supportive and fun. If you’re looking for structure or community, here are a few options that I have loved:

• Elizabeth Kott runs guided groups with weekly check-ins and Artist Dates. Very encouraging and efficient.
• Aura Schwartz offers groups with a Jewish lens and spiritual structure, which can feel especially grounding if that language speaks to you.
• You can also form your own small circle of friends and move through the book together.
• Some people prefer doing it solo but sharing morning-page insights with one accountability partner.

There’s no “right” way. The point is showing up.