... when putting down and rearranging words here: a 'sublime fool.' And what I wish (within the bounds of reason and personal responsibility, of course) for M 'n' m: regular moments of creative sublimity. Whether they're artists, cellists, gardeners, chefs, ballplayers, basket-weavers – even if the output sucks, and I know what that's like – I hope they find and love the process, and I hope they do so in many creative forms and outlets, professionally, personally, in every way possible.
"If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories – science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world."
— Ray Bradbury
I enjoy writing; skill be damned, the sublimity and flow of creating – even turning out shit – is as effectual as a drug. I wish M 'n' m habits and hobbies that put them here often, especially as adults, where their energy and focus go bulletproof, where little burdens and bindings fall away and time is imperceptible, where boredom, drudgery, depression are not just impossible, they're absurd. Because we're busy being foolish, crazy, and in love.
Naturally, I find parallels between creative flow and parenthood. For every complexity and responsibility parenthood heaps upon us, other things seem to crystalize in a kind of symmetry and order; for every confusion and conflict added, others are obliterated.
Yes, I hope M 'n' m are creative 'for the next 20,000 days' (and then 20,000 more, you can check my math). Those around me do this well, some in fulfilling careers, some by other pursuits, and when I realize I'm preaching to the choir, I see it's my own vulnerability and weakness I'm worried about; I'm preaching to myself: stay active, creative, and in love with life. Amen.
"If your everyday life seems poor to you, do not accuse it; accuse yourself, tell yourself you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; since for the creator there is no poverty and no poor or unimportant place."
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Yes, I hope M 'n' m are creative 'for the next 20,000 days' (and then 20,000 more, you can check my math). Those around me do this well, some in fulfilling careers, some by other pursuits, and when I realize I'm preaching to the choir, I see it's my own vulnerability and weakness I'm worried about; I'm preaching to myself: stay active, creative, and in love with life. Amen.
"If your everyday life seems poor to you, do not accuse it; accuse yourself, tell yourself you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; since for the creator there is no poverty and no poor or unimportant place."
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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