When we came in she had her chair sideways by the window looking out at the snow, and she said, without even looking up to know it was us, that the doctor had said that sitting and staring at the snow was a waste of time. She should get involved in something. She laughed and told us it wasn't a waste of time. It would be a waste of time just to stare at the snowflakes but she was counting, and even that might be a waste of time, but she was only counting the ones that were just alike
—Anne Beattie
Everybody has a given amount of calories to burn up — you either burn them up by living or by creating. You can't burn the same calories both ways. You make poetry out of your unhappiness, and you might argue that you can also make poetry out of your happiness. But why should you make poetry when you are happy instead of living it out? Creativity is a secondary expression. The primary expression is living.
—Arthur Koestler
“Not many of us know who or what we are,” said the Doorkeeper. “A glimpse is all we get.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin
The Artist Of Being
The things I have enjoyed all of my life, reading, writing, thinking and dreaming are not, nor have they ever been the driving force of my life. With reading my pace is deliberately slow permitting the bonding, the falling in love with each word as its image and my eyes connect. So I am very selective with what I read, for falling in love is a demanding endeavor. Writing ignites a passion when I read the words I have written but the search and securement of those words and waves of thought is not always an easy task requiring long, seemingly endless hours of thinking and dreaming. I love thinking and dreaming. My world opens to the impossible and the improbable and they become no longer so. A secret world, open only to those I invite or who invite me to share. And as much as reading, writing, thinking and dreaming express my passion, I a not passionate about any, neither is my true passion.
The passion of this soul is simply being! There is no greater joy or satisfaction for me. I have never wanted to be other than myself. I have played many roles throughout my life to arrive at where I am now and all of those roles lacked both passion and commitment on my part. I want to just be this life I am without any titles before or letters after my name. Being requires a small amount of courage and a large dose of imagination but requires no pen and ink, no saber hair brushes and no digital anything. The artist of being sculptures his life the same way the potter sculptures a vase but without clay. The only material required for being is your appreciation, acceptance and love of this life. There is no container for being, no walls to enclose it, no rules or dogmas to enslave it. Being is life in its most natural state. It is negative space for the artist. The empty space for the potter.
The artist of being embraces life, not its gadgets and toys. These things are merely aids. He/she lives in a natural state and pace of life as opposed to the 24/7 always on the go choice of our society. The rising and setting of the sun, the cycles of the moon and the flow of the seasons have precedence over the clock, the stopwatch and even time itself.
It is the nature of our society to judge or rather misjudge those who want only to be themselves. Those who choose to opt out of the rat race we westerners call life for a different way of existing are looked upon with distain by our colleagues, friends and even family members. But secretly, they whisper, "I wish I had the courage to live my life the way I want to," and each day they play out a life in which they cannot be who they really are, themselves.
If there is a Saint Peter or some gatekeeper guarding the realms of the afterlife, I imagine the only question he or she will ask is, "Did you live the life you wanted to live?"
What will your answer be?
Photo Credit: Solitude, L.L.Battles, Digital Image, 2010.