A middle way

So I finished watching Rent.  I cried when Tom was singing his song at Angel’s funeral, and again when we thought Mimi died.

I am often angry and intolerant.  But I am not heartless.  My feeling hurts me, and so I dial it down.

But I feel that there is a middle way between complete emotional dissolution–one based on a fetishized “creativity” which, when it fails, as it usually does for all but the most talented, and even for them often (Hemingway killed himself when he ran out of ideas), turns to destruction–and a robotic existence hemmed in by clocks, tedium, and emotional vacuity and superficiality.  There is a way between the bohemian and the Organization Man.

More life is possible, which is not seeding at every moment its own failure and cessation.  Seeds can be planted which sprout and yield more seeds.  Life is a pasture which can be cultivated, a garden which can be grown, all within limits.   This is my own work.

And as I have said before, the paradigmatic creative act is perception.  It is not the paint you put on a canvas, but the vision you have of something you have not seen before.  This vision is a perception, and crystallization of something which you now see was always possible.

And craftsmanship is an act of creation too.  Woodworking is creative, because it requires an on-going perfection of technique, of detail, of a deep understanding of how things work and how they go together.