EIGHT YEARS AGO
I've been on a business-related road trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Being quite busy, and fairly immersed in what I've been doing, I didn't have any burning topics in my soul for the blog yesterday, or even this morning.
The weather these past two days has been perfect. Mid-seventies, sunny skies. Kentucky's truly beautiful in the spring. The green grass -- even though it's called "The Bluegrass State -- and white fences make for some wonderful scenes and I think of the song "My Old Kentucky Home" because my father's roots are here.
This morning there's an overcast sky and a grey misty quality that brings to mind an early poem of mine titled Wisconsin Misty Morning, written during a week's vacation to a finger lake in central Wisconsin during a time in 1983 when I was wrestling with my life direction. The poem begins with something of a deep groan from my soul, a prayer to have the fog lifted from my life path. "Wisconsin misty morning come redeem me from this drifting, like the fog that here is lifting..."
And then it happened. I experienced a deep sense of calling to be a writer. Or rather, the fog lifted that week and I realized I'd always been a writer, and that if I followed this particular star it would lead somewhere, that I'd fulfill my destiny, wherever and in whatever form that took.
I've been on a business-related road trip to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Being quite busy, and fairly immersed in what I've been doing, I didn't have any burning topics in my soul for the blog yesterday, or even this morning.
The weather these past two days has been perfect. Mid-seventies, sunny skies. Kentucky's truly beautiful in the spring. The green grass -- even though it's called "The Bluegrass State -- and white fences make for some wonderful scenes and I think of the song "My Old Kentucky Home" because my father's roots are here.This morning there's an overcast sky and a grey misty quality that brings to mind an early poem of mine titled Wisconsin Misty Morning, written during a week's vacation to a finger lake in central Wisconsin during a time in 1983 when I was wrestling with my life direction. The poem begins with something of a deep groan from my soul, a prayer to have the fog lifted from my life path. "Wisconsin misty morning come redeem me from this drifting, like the fog that here is lifting..."
And then it happened. I experienced a deep sense of calling to be a writer. Or rather, the fog lifted that week and I realized I'd always been a writer, and that if I followed this particular star it would lead somewhere, that I'd fulfill my destiny, wherever and in whatever form that took.
To some extent this is what Joseph Campbell meant when he said "Follow your bliss." I had aways been a creative person, but had locked myself into believing this creative flow had to be expressed in the visual arts I'd pursued in college. But creativity is much bigger than that. Like a shapeshifter it can be expressed through architecture, engineering, applied sciences, philosophy, even economics as demonstrated in the Russell Crowe film A Beautiful Mind.
There is something quite powerful in knowing you're doing what you were destined to do or using the gifts that are innately, and even uniquely, yours. If you haven't got a passion worth hitching your life to, then maybe your first quest should be to get to know yourself. Who are you?
Take your time, though. You can't force it. This sense of calling has to come from within. And don't be afraid to dream.
* * * *
Last weekend I saw a man wearing a T-shirt with Mark Twain's famous observation across the front: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
May your fog lift so that you can get in snc with who you are.
Last weekend I saw a man wearing a T-shirt with Mark Twain's famous observation across the front: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
May your fog lift so that you can get in snc with who you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment