[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

I wrote to a friend yesterday, "I'm struggling to write my first blog post since late May,"  lamenting that it was taking far longer to compose than I'd thought it would..."I'm out of practice!"

Frustrated and ashamed, it was obvious that even when greatly motivated by the greatly inspiring Maria Popova, inspiration is not enough.  It is only a small catalyst to the need for experienced articulation--the plain old habit of writing while thinking critically--if epiphanies are to be successfully communicated. It takes concerted effort--skill--to produce enticing reading, as she does.

If I had not gotten fat and lazy, discouraged from the habit by wondering, WHO CARES?  the above paragraph would have been far less wordy and quicker to the point. This is what Popova does in the last two sentences that have inspired a return to posting:

…but first, the necessary last two paragraphs of her essay, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE:

“Here we are...you and me…
each of us  a trembling totality,
made of particles both absolutely vulnerable, and absolutely indestructible,
hungering for absolutes in a universe of relativity,
hungering for permanence in a universe of ceaseless change,
famished for meaning, for beauty, for emblems of existence.

Out of these hungers, out of these contradictions,
we make everything that invigorates life with aliveness:
our art and our music, our poems and our mathematics, our novels and our loves.“

I'm not particularly impressed with this impulsive doodle, but it was made in a burst of joy when I realized that the three, sometimes exhausting/often conflicting, elemental projects in my life were: Writing, Teaching, and PILAR.  Each of them a uniquely rewarding practice of ART...which "invigorates (my) life with aliveness..." 

The struggle I have been having for too long has been the attempt to decide which of these three loves has to go, to allow at least one of them to mature. I no longer feel the need to choose. I am blessed to have such a bounty of rewarding responsibilities to fill the rest of my dwindling days...it doesn't matter how proficient or acknowledged they become. The reward is in the daily doing.

I hope that by sharing this quote and these thoughts, others might re-evaluate and revitalize their daily lives, also.