I, where I turned, felt the enchantment
“The experience of centering was one I particularly sought because I thought of myself as dispersed, interested in too many things. I envied people who were “single-minded,” who had one powerful talent and who knew when they got up in the morning what it was they had to do. Whereas I, where I turned, felt the enchantment: to the window for the sweetness of the air; to the door for the passing figures; to the teapot, the typewriter, the knitting needles, the pets, the pottery, the newspaper, the telephone. Wherever I looked, I could have lived.
It took me half my life to come to believe I was OK even if I did love experience in a loose and undiscriminating way and did not know for sure the difference between good and bad. My struggles to accept my nature were the struggles of centering. I found myself at odds with the propaganda of our times. One is supposed to be either an artist or a homemaker, by one popular superstition. Either a teacher or a poet, by a theory which says that poetry must not sermonize. Either a craftsman or an intellectual, by a snobbism — which claims either the hand or head as the seat of true power. One is supposed to concentrate and not to spread oneself thin, as the jargon goes. And this is a jargon spoken by a cultural leadership from which it takes time to win one’s freedom, if one is not lucky enough to have been born free. Finally, I hit upon an image: a seed-sower. Not to worry about which seeds sprout. But to give them as my gift in good faith.”
– M.C. Richards in Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person
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related, in case you haven’t seen it, to this post.
Ah, this is interesting, is it not? I’m a bit of a dilettante, a generalist, a non-labeller myself. Let’s sow seeds!
Yes, let’s do! Let’s celebrate that – in this culture that demands specialization!
It’s good to overcome a sense of shame at not being label-able (I just hate “What do you do?” when the answer is supposed to be a job title)
At least on the Camino no one keeps asking you ‘What do you do?’ Etc. There are more interesting things to talk about!
THAT sounds like the way things ought to be! I mean, if we’re going to talk about “what you do” at least tell me what you LOVE to do!