They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
- Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987), The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
It is odd that one should be left stimulated creatively so little for so long a time. It seems to create a sort of impression or a sense that one could cease writing altogether. Creative stimulations, after all, come and go as the wind does. One would least know when to expect it or attempt to anticipate even something close to it. Then again, one could scarcely consider my unusual scribbles a result of creative stimulation. They are results of my unusual whims. Life, cannot and I should like to think that it should not be narrated in a few dreary lines – my life, at least. I could hardly decide if doing so would do more injustice to the actual happenings of my life or to the words already squandered from the narration.
Someone once said that you should always stop and smell the roses. Always, I have heard, they are worthwhile. Although, I must say, when you think about it, roses aren’t really quite the sort of organic object you quite find on the street when you want to smell them. Does it then mean that one should have to look for the roses to smell them? Surely, that should be a great devil of a trouble. If, one is told to smell the green grass, it might have made more sense. They are almost certainly available. Then again, one should think that grass wouldn’t be so worthwhile smelling. Yet, why should green grass deserve any less sensory attention than roses when roses have thorns. Ubiquity should not be popularity. It must have been the colour.
Quite possibly, I am not moved the same way anymore. Nothing quite captures the heart or the mind like it used to – not the rose smelling or the grass smelling. There is a reason why one has to stop to smell them. The act or the thought appears sometimes a little … unlikely. It requires a little more than just noticing they are there but conscious action and effort of going deliberately towards them just to experience the returns. They cease to matter in a way they used to, as if they exist now in a realm quite out of reach. I should feel it is quite overwhelming. Maybe, one learns that even if roses do smell better they most definitely don’t make the perfect soup.
Decidedly so, one cannot write when nothing appears significant. One cannot write in a manner so absent and so distant to paint a picture only with broad strokes. Details define the art. Age does strange things to people. The vision blurs and you don’t quite see the details anymore. It could hardly be said that I am the person I was 12 months ago. At any rate, I shouldn’t want it to be so. Sometimes, I like to think I’m growing up. Most of the other times, though, I feel I am growing old. And, I cannot quite decide which of the two is best or both are detrimental.
There, I’m rambling – always a good excuse for bad writing.
And, age – always a good excuse for bad ramblings.
[[ music ]] Robbie Williams - Things
[[ book ]] A. S. Byatt - The Shadow of the Sun
[[ mood ]] blank