I’m afraid I have waited much too long. It’s never going to be just perfect; it’s never going to come to me all at once. The words, like any other work of art, must still be blended, contrasted and arranged. The inspiration is never accompanied by composition. I have confused profundity and inspiration with creation… I have been waiting for something that will never arrive. It can’t be delivered or received - it is not yet created.
It would be nothing to take a thought, an idea, or a truth of universal proportions and simply transpose. If the answers to all the big questions of mankind were delivered directly into my skull, would I be any the wiser? Of what value would that be? No toil, no struggle, no questioning the clarity and rhythm of the words… just a simple recording of something in my head? Worthless. The process, stoked by inspired madness gives birth to the words that must then be nurtured to maturity.
The library is not a quiet place. There are sounds everywhere. Hushed whispers, the shuffling of feet, the rustling pages filled with words written and the ever-present droning of the escalator on its endless journey - all provide texture to what the words will become. It is Saturday, just before closing. Rain has been falling for most of the day. Inside the library a cool, moist freshness permeates the nearly abandoned building. And the escalator never stops.
Life is a constant journey of discovery and rediscovery. Learning from words past and experiences present. Like the escalator, often it drones on and on. People get on, people get off and the escalator keeps climbing, sometimes for hours in solitude, just waiting. Another experience, another piece of a never ending puzzle… a picture never fully formed and never completely finished, the words are kept here. My experiences reflected in words will form the experience of others and they, too, will contribute their words to the mosaic that will never be complete.
The messages come from nowhere and everywhere, from no one and everyone. They come to me and they come for me, beckoning me to create. Yet I resist, waiting for more, waiting for the framework or, better yet, the completed. It will not; it cannot. It can only be formed here, right now. These words are created within this library, on this rainy day, amongst these books and next to this escalator. There could be no other way.
4 comments:
Wow, quite theological. I'm impressed. In the world i live it could be called "inspiration." Of course the question arrives from where the inspiration comes from. I personally lie the word "providence."
-Theoloyia
Took me back to the library in undergrad where I used to sweat out assignments under threat of an everpresent clock.
The world often doesn't seem to care whether or not you're capable of finding the words. The machine needs to be fed. Another deadline needs to be met. Sometimes, the pressure is all the inspiration we need to fill the vacuum before moving on to the next.
Beautifully put, as ever.
I think either you were bored in the library or you were stalling (not studying) when you wrote this.....LOL
Sometimes, atmossphere is everything!
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