Most things sound better in French. If my French is bad keep in mind I only had 1 week of French.
It occurred to me this morning that learning to live is actually a skill. Learning to LIVE, to feel life, to feel creative and emotionally prosperous.
Art itself often of course flows out of manias of all sorts. But it is always, I think, an outcome of trying to learn how to live.
Our ultimate creative act, though, is how we spend our days. With what new emotions do we greet the day? New colors?
Camus seemed to view happiness as a sort of rebellion against the order of things. This is perhaps pushing things too far, but it does seem reasonable to suppose happiness, like painting a painting, writing music, or choreographing a dance, takes a bit of a plan, effort, and some time.
And learning how to create it is the real skill. You have to feel it, then figure out how to replicate it regularly. And as I said recently, happiness in you, when honest, is a gift to the world. You provide the model. You lead the way.
And I will append a metaphor that occurred to me a couple weeks ago that I just haven’t posted. Some ideas come upon me so clearly that I know they will never disappear.
Learning how to learn is traveling across flat ground. It may involve crossing marshes, may involve crossing rivers, may even involve crossing oceans, but you don’t go up or down. Only once you have learned how to learn do you reach the foot of the mountain and begin climbing.
I think this is close to the truth, although I will admit I have offered other metaphors that contradict this one. I am a man of many contradictions, as several clever fellows in the past have commented of themselves. Say what you want to say, and don’t worry if you said the opposite yesterday, at least if you are playing, as I often am. My more serious stuff is on the other website (goodnessmovement.com), although even much of that is provisional.
You only really owe the world a duty to be consistent when you are pushing people into something or other, or when you are CLAIMING to be the ONE and ONLY person who sees things clearly. In that case, to quote Steve Martin “Always–no, never–no wait I’m pretty sure it’s always. . .” doesn’t work.
And since most people don’t remember much (as C.S. Lewis put it, the task is not to clear the jungle but irrigate the desert), I will offer the obvious Emerson quote: “Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of little minds.”
Pick what you like. And then change it after a while if you feel like it. Above all, don’t assume there IS one way, CAN be one way, or that any possible progress will not involve flexibility, perceptiveness, and adaptation. You don’t get to be a tree. You were born with feet (I hope). Shuffle them. To the left to the left to the left, and NOW to the right, to the right to the right. Otherwise, you know, everybody runs into the wall.