As threatened, here I am with another post!
As I mentioned, I really didn’t go on any planned hiatus from blogging, things just kind of happened that way. The pull of fresh air and sunshine is certainly part of it, but there is a more subtle reason that may account for blogs inadvertently disappearing. Or oil paints drying up. Or guitars laying in a corner under a coating of dust.
I think any creative endeavor is like a blade of grass or a weed growing up through a crack in the pavement. Given just a slight jump on the elements, it pushes forward, emerging more day by day, until finally, if it doesn’t get chopped down, the persistent, constant pressure of the new life cracks the pavement and permanently claims a place. Maybe this metaphor appeals to me because I see nature reclaiming some of our old decaying industrial places around here.
The roundabout point being made here is that creative effort, every day, tends to bring forth more creativity. When I was posting often, I was always seeing new material for posts. I thought about what ideas I wanted to get across. There was a momentum.
But let your efforts lapse, and pretty soon the mundane and the maintaining of our daily life tend to take over. You start listening to the news (why?). You actually find yourself thinking about all the crap the media and other sources throw at you. “Earth Leakage” as coined by Jean Burman is a good way to think of it!
In short, life becomes all about THEM and less about YOU. I don’t mean that in an egotistical sense, I mean that I think it’s up to us to determine just what THEM we need to concern ourselves with.
It’s time to decide just who is gonna be in my THEM Club. It’ll be a pretty select group. Everybody else can go to hell.
The Fool folds his arms 
Thanks for the mention Harry 🙂 your kindness is much appreciated. And I SO get what you’re talking about here. And just love your analogy of the blade of grass growing up through that crack in the pavement. I see it… I feel it… heck I AM it LOL
It takes real focus to keep at it creatively every day [as you point out] but also I think the process in and of itself is cyclical as well. I see it as a kind of pulse… with a resting period between each surge of creative thought/deed/action. Each wave bringing new fresh thoughts and ideas. When you think about it that’s how nature works and we’re part of it I guess. Does that make any sense? [grin]
Good to have you back posting, Harry. I agree with Jean about the grass poking through the crack in the pavement.
You mentioned how you start “listening the news.” Why? Exactly. I do this and it’s silly. It’s a fine line between being informed to getting sucked into the soap opera media pumps out. We can easily let all that stuff consume our precious time. I’ve often thought that if I’d never known of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, I’d have spent a whole lot more time thinking about positive things and less dwelling on what it all meant. If I’d been “unplugged” the essence of my life would not have changed from that event except that I would not have spent so much time working on the issue in my brain. What could have I have used that time for? To prove it, I thought, all I would have noticed is that going to the airport would have had some more security and sometimes, some longer lines. Oh well.
This is not to say that we should bury our heads or not be concerned with our fellow humans, but rather, everything we take in pushes something else out and we can make choices. Being buried in social media is a choice and I know we’ve both stepped back lately from the pace.
Thanks, John – I think we were raised to believe that an “intelligent” person (whatever that means anymore) spent time informing themselves about the world around them, and their society, government, etc. Naturally, watching the news, discussion shows, and reading newspapers were all part of what we considered “staying informed”.
But I think now we can safely say that this is impossible to do. In years past, we were fed from a common stream that swayed opinion. Now, we have media that merely supports whatever belief you happen to have at the time. So essentially, it’s less dangerous, but irrelevant.
Appreciate the welcome back – how’s the island paradise shaping up?
Island paradise is shaping up well. We just passed the busiest weekend of the summer (it was a long weekend) and I think the island begins to sink with all the people. Now, it starts its slow trek back to normal once the fall comes.
I’ve been waiting to get a well drilled. Five weeks! The fellow doing the job has a very old rig and it’s having mechanical trouble, or he’s having the trouble or both.