Thought For The Day
I've been a bit under the weather with a nasty cold or something very mean that starts like a cold and then removes every ounce of energy from your body and leaves you a very sore throat. I don't get sick much and so this is not a part of my planned activities. If I don't plan it, I don't like it, usually and this time I am absolutely sure I don't like it.
What I've noticed is that when I am out of sorts my muse is hiding out somewhere. That is a fairly common malady for the amateur, a real writer would gut through the doldrums and create something of value in spite of a missing muse. I cannot imagine Stephen King whining about a missing muse. He doesn't whine, he writes. And, Hemingway would just muster up the courage to carry through wounded or maligned and create clean, exact sentences that pull the emotion from inside the reader. James Joyce never worried about a muse. He was so filled with thoughts and experiences of Dublin, a place he never left in spirit, and figured if it happened there it happened in any other big city as well. And Robert Frost could always look out a window and see a road or a fence, a tree or a brook and when you get right down to it, what else is there really?
In the final analysis I don't write because I think you need the benefit of my art or point of view, I write because I love to. I love the words and emotions that come as the result of words. I love the places words can take me. I love that I can fly with words, sing with words and dream with words and if I am never a star at least I can be a lamp for someone even if it only happens once on a day after I have long since become a part of the music of the spheres. If I were a pianist would I not play because I was not Mozart? If I were a cellist would I be sad because I was not Yo yo Maa? Or would I celebrate my ears because I could hear the result of my own effort. One's art as an amateur is offered from a posture of joy and a wish to share it. You would not criticize a child's mother or father's day hand made gift. Why would you not be willing to create something yourself to share with those you love? Gertrude Stein may have judged Hemingway and Fitzgerald severely or lovingly but there are more who know them than her because, A rose is a rose is a rose.
Herb Ratliff, April 11, 2012, All Rights Reserved
Some beautiful sentiment expressed here. The analogies are spot on. I use to say that very thing to the parents of my less stellar piano students--if they learned nothing more than to play for their own enjoyment, it was worth the learning.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good one to return to from time to time.