It is the dream thing. The thinking of it before it is, the hearing and seeing of something not yet, becoming something in the now. The artistic, co-creationistic universe at work in the human mind, and emotions, that gives life to art in many forms. It is something I have played with since I was a child. It is not something I thought to do, but something I noticed I did, and still do. It just happens, whether I like it or not, or notice it or not. I cannot stop it from happening, and would not even try. I sat down at nine years old, and wrote my first song on paper, while at my mother's piano in Tucson, Arizona in the fifties, and have been writing ever since. People who do not know about this, because they have never paid attention to it, specifically, still do it whether they know it or not. Maybe they do it when they're cooking, or thinking of a flower arrangement, or something, but they do it nonetheless. It is an activity that goes on willy-nilly during everyone's life. It could be a person thinking about flying an airplane or dancing on a stage. It does not matter what it is, only that it is. We all create within ourselves what we pay attention to. We can create almost anything without exception. "As a man thinketh, so is he," is a saying that attempts to convey this message to whomever. There are many such messages on this planet that have existed since time began, but they are only adhered to by some.
If one becomes caught, as I have been in my life, in the rut of too many negative experiences, then they tend to expect, as I do, more of the same, simply based on past experience. The trick is, to consciously attempt to rework that thinking into new thinking that proposes better circumstances now, and in the future. As simple, and true, as this is, it is not at all easy to do. I spend a lot of time in trying to recreate my own expectations for something better. I have found myself besieged in the last few years with one catastrophe after another, which is something countless persons experience. So it becomes even more difficult to look past these occurrences to brighter days, yet that is exactly the point. Whether it is Ernest Holmes, Buddha, Jesus Christ, or some other version, the point is always the same. See what you want to see, not what you don't want to see, even if you are currently engulfed in it. If not, you will continue creating for yourself exactly what you don't want, but have had.
When one is ill, like I have been for years, it is of paramount importance to try and bend one's own vision of him/herself into the belief of wellness, even in the face of dis-ease, or disease. If I tend to continue to see myself as "sick" then my message to myself is sickness. So I have to fight to recreate this picture, and belief, into a better picture and better belief. It is like a piece of art, perhaps a painting. You get to decide what it is you are going to paint, and if you make a mistake, you can fix it, or change it and make it right. The same is true with writing. If you write something poorly, you can always go back and change it, or fix it, and make it the way you intended it to be. The biggest problem is not knowing, or believing, that you can do this, or giving up on it, simply because you don't get the results you want immediately. Stick with it, it works! Stay the course and you will be intrigued by what you can accomplish. Everyday I believe I can do better at everything, even though a times it seems futile. The only true mistake I will ever make, is giving up on what I am trying to correct.....
GO TO PART 1 OF BLOG
Now here is something that you don't do very often: give advice. Very good advice, I might add.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, in the most recent episode of the SyFy channel series, 12 Monkeys, the father reiterates to his time traveling son the phrase that he so often tried to teach him in his youth, "The only failure is giving up."
Your variation of "find ways to make it (or you) better" has real, empowering resonance. I hear echoes of Ernest Holmes, the Dalai Lama, Emerson, et al.
I used to summarize the three threads of American attitudes toward art in this way:
Emerson: The major goal of art is truth.
Poe: The major goal of art is beauty.
Thoreau: A man's life is his most important work of art.
Dickinson reconciled it this way:
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth - the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a-night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
You did a fine job of revealing both the conscious and unconscious creation of art and connecting it to the creation and control of our lives as our own works of art. Furthermore, you left us with a gem:
"The only true mistake I will ever make, is giving up on what I am trying to correct...."
I wrote this, because I get tired of comments from some, who lecture me on how to live, as if they know how I live, which they do not. This blog deals with the past mostly, and does not fully explain what it is I think about, when I'm not here complaining, or rehashing old wounds. The therapeutic + of having a place to do this is helpful as hell, but at times is misconstrued to be all that I do, which is a fallacy. What I do is to rip open everything and look at the guts of it, so I can be as clear as possible about mistakes made, and continued. I resent being talked to by some who would have us (the reader) believe that they are all knowing, and suffer not their own set of failures and problems. So thank you Tim McMullen for your response to what I wrote in willy-nilly
ReplyDeleteDeep insights here... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAppreciate this new side of your experience. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteJust wrote a long comment and it disappeared!...
ReplyDeleteThese two sentences are outstanding in my mind:
"The trick is, to consciously attempt to rework that thinking into new thinking that proposes better circumstances now, and in the future."
"The only true mistake I will ever make, is giving up on what I am trying to correct....."
Powerful words that can change despair into hope.
I really needed to read this tonight.
Thank you Bobby