I’ve just had some days off from ‘work’, and any ritual routines and soft disciplines have gone out the window. My daily endorphin hit and my usual duties have been replaced with some priceless time with my family, and time to conjure thoughts, needs and wants.
A certain old lady once said… “When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go…”
As I said last month, occasionally everything can seem utterly defeating… When found wanting, we tend to look for a validating script, a role, a purpose, a narrative. We seek value, reason, a righteousness… We like to come up with things to define stuff, things that help make sense of the worlds around us.
To differing degrees, I guess we are all wanting (or needing?) to paint something on the raw cave walls. Whether it be reading a novel, watching drama on TV, knocking a ball around a field, playing or listening to music, cultivating a garden, building machines, walking the dog, painting, giving blood, creating routine, eating healthily, writing, acting*… we all want to fill the void… I do find the human capacity to make more of what’s there exciting, perhaps it’s part of what makes us more than animal. It is to be encouraged, it is to be celebrated, it is to be respected.
I’m a person who likes to play with variables, I find it hard to accept definitions, I like to create more out less, or perhaps less out of more… (I am excited by the current Frank Bowling exhibition.) However, a problem with this approach is when you do find you need to rely on something it can be hard to find…
*A ‘retired actress’ character in a play I am currently in says she considers her ‘acting’ to be “the best escape you can have”, “escape from the burden of being oneself…”.
On reflection, I find that quite sad… rather than acting out an escape from the void, can we create acceptance, find enchantment, capture awareness of what we really have, where we really are, what we truly need, and not create a burden of want?
When you want me but no longer need me I can be hard to find…
You can see this ‘stuff on the wall’ in 2012: HERE
Jules P Richards 