Category: Writing

Life has a certain tonal quality to it. Cities and rural areas may differ, but it is all the sound of life. Life is the presence of sounds.

An absence of sound would be abnormal. What we know as silence, if we are able to hear, is merely quiet. True silence is something we mostly don’t have the capacity, or willingness, to comprehend.

The simplest thing to do when faced with a situation you don’t understand is to admit that you don’t understand it. But, it’s difficult too. Maybe you feign knowledge of the subject matter, demurring to a new topic as soon as possible. Maybe it’s worse than that. What seems difficult to do for many is to admit, “I don’t know.”

But it shouldn’t be that hard. We have narrow fields of expertise, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with admitting this is beyond your expertise.

Long time no see (sashiburi da na), in Japanese. And, yes, it’s been a while. I guess I took a hiatus while I started working for a tv show filming in the Atlanta area, but even when I did get some days off, I wasn’t writing. I couldn’t honestly tell you why. 

But here I am, back, more or less. And I’ve had plenty of time to fill the well. 

The well is that reserve of topics, knowledge, and inspiration you dive into when working on creative endeavors. It’s important to add new to it frequently, daily if possible. The more it’s filled, the more likely you are to be able to use something from the well later on. 

Some things to peruse I picked up or wondered over during the week:

• The pandemic has hit some organizations harder than others, and the world of the arts is no different. This reporting from the Orlando Weekly shed some light on organizations I’ve worked with over the years, and how they made changes to their programming, and how new funding is becoming available.
• From the Art Review, the opinion that funds should go to artists, not art managers.
• Regarding the world of my favorite beverage, it seems that drinking decaf coffee could have dangerous side effects. And while my decaf consumption is usually little to nil, it’s important to remember that everything should be consumed “in moderation”.
• Something happened in January which made many people excited – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby entered the public domain. It now becomes open to freely interpreted and performed adaptations. Just last year, Fortitude (the New York Public Library lion) was photographed with a copy of Gatsby.
• And, of course, sign up for the NYPL newsletters, with an array of options to choose from.

This year promises to be another unusual year, but not necessarily in the same way last year was unusual. Everyone was knocked off-balance by 2020, and the recovery from that shellacking is still under way.

The new year seems to be promising that recovery. Hope is shining through the seams from around every stitch, and it’s looking good. Not that we should become complacent. But, a little hope goes a long way, and it’s about time we got some.

So we’ll march through these next months, rebuilding and restoring. Some businesses are gone forever, but new ones will crop up. As restrictions ease and the threat of pandemic stops looming large, new opportunities will reveal themselves.

So, it seems that what this new year is ushering in is the new. A period for new innovation, new creativity, and new optimism.

I’ve been considering this particular day for a couple of months now. In the lead-up to November elections, it was whether President Trump would win or lose the election. In the days that followed, it was wondering how President Biden would begin his presidency.

For whichever side you fall on, the truth is that we have become a fractured nation. Split by party politics and shattered in our varying views.

There may be some, there may be many, who think that President Biden isn’t up to the task. Whether he is or he isn’t, he is the one whose job it will be to mend broken ties. It’s in everyone’s best interest that he succeeds.

The tech world moves fast. New innovation comes faster than we know what to do with it. The learning curve is steep.

Early adopters get the benefit by early exposure. Try out the the new things. Give it a chance.

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

What is said today, on MLK Day, just days before a new president is sworn in, just weeks after an insurrection at the Capital, and in the midst of a world-wide pandemic – the words that are said today, and every day, matter. They matter to the ones who hear them, the ones who learn of them later, and the ones who will come long after we’re gone.

Words matter. And how we use those words, how we speak, and the actions that back them up – creative altruism, or destructive selfishness?

No one seeks to be selfish. No one seeks to be self-destructive. But it happens. Whether by training, or by need, there are learned behaviors that can become harmful is left to persist. We’ve seen the course of action that people will take when acting destructively, and operating on misleading words.

King wished for, and believed in, the goodness of humanity. A goodness we’re still trying to live up to.

There’s a tendency to act and speak in a way that can be impressive to others. How we’re perceived can matter a great deal to us. But rather than look outward for edification, why not look inward.

How would you behave if you wanted to impress yourself? What would you say, and what would you do?

Because, at the end of the day, finding your own value is more important than the value that anyone else can place on you.

“The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, wether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

This bleak prognostication of artistic life is, well, off-putting. But it’s a calling, much like any other calling. And when a calling drives you, pushes you to engage it, no matter what life may throw in your path, then it’s a calling that you must fulfill.

When driving towards your goal, expect to be miserable at some point. No great achievement ever came easy, or with no cost.