30 Day Blogging Challenge #29

Living creatively

By Emma Palova

Lowell, MI- I love number 29. I was 29 when I came to the USA and got creative. I grabbed the first money I had, and took off to buy a word processor. I still remember that day.

I returned victoriously from the store and started writing for Czechoslovak Biweekly newspaper based in NYC under the editorship of Peter Bisek.

Unlike what my parents wanted to continue in my civil engineer career and go work for an asphalt company, I knew that’s not what I wanted.

To be happy, I had to go my own way.

Going my own way means living creatively, not in conformity. Living creatively hasn’t always been easy. Ask Vincent Van Gogh. No, I haven’t cut my ear off and I am not living off of my brother.

You endure hardship and most of the time you have no or little money. You’re criticized by other people to get a real job.

But, you get the satisfaction of expressing yourself at a time when people are silent in this violent world.

You get the satisfaction of maybe helping someone out there to do the same thing.

Once we all regroup, we have won. If we all live creatively, there will be no violence left.

By living creatively, we’re moving forward not backwards.

I took my creativity to the next level in 2013 when I learned to blog on the WordPress platform. I enjoyed it from the get go: the challenge of learning something new and being a part of a group of progressive people.

My brother Vas is also creative. He paints and builds model trains.

I also love entrepreneurship. I take that after my grandpa Joseph. He had his own business in communist Czechoslovakia, which he went to jail for. You were not allowed to have a business in communism.

Grandpa wasn’t afraid, he would not conform. Neither will I.

I will always stand up for what I believe. I always have.

My personal hero is late Czech president Vaclav Havel. He went to jail many times for standing for what he believed in. But, he kept writing against the regime. Havel signed the Charta document that started a movement that eventually brought communism down.

It all starts with one person who is not afraid to speak up.

Set your tone. Speak up. Join in.