It's asking a lot of monday morning to face being a genius, an undiscovered genius, a genius who in all probability will die "unknown" in terms of the greater entertainment universe. pathetic? not really. pathetic is not appreciating what you have while you have it, and that "ain't" me.. not at all. in fact, i am privileged to be a (hmm what shall i call this?) a fop, a dandy, a dilentante, a person like the old country gentlemen of the 17th or 18th century (didn't they have to go out to war though? or empire-build?) the ones who could ride horses in the morning, meet their lover for a tryst for lunch, collection turtle shells for their cabinet of curiosities in the afternoon before helping the cooks make a gourmet feast as a surprise for the manor-dwellers, then perhaps a nap, a salon of local music and poetry in the evening including the haiku you wrote this afternoon, Sonnet to a Turtle Shell. how bad is that?
The point is it's "not too shabby" provided one can live within the boundaries set up. One thing I think is interesting is how (so many) people now live with the fantasy of "fame" however fleeting. Like the parents of the "balloon boy" so desperate to get "media attention" they put their son in the middle of a hoax. I'm sure there are worse things going on. One can only image: "Why don't you write about this?" Whack!
Sometimes I wonder "what the world would be like if" people expected each other to be (casually) creative and casually share the products of their creativity. I suppose that is why some years ago I was drawn into the idea of co-housing, my last shot at (perhaps) living in a hippie-ish eco-utopia before I realized I really didn't LIKE people all that much. I mean, I wasn't ready for endless meetings about whether the community dinner should be vegan, or whether we should "voluntarily" turn down our thermostats (to save energy). I don't think I truly have the patience for that. Perhaps if there was an opening for a "crank" I could take it, but not the way things are. I just have lost my belief in the rationality of people. Oh, we're all rational (sort of) on the small decisions, but on the "big ones" (global warming) we are buffeted around by the media, the images in our brains (as a substitute for thought) drive up inevitably in only one direction. So there's that.
Not so many years ago I thought it would "relatively" easy to become a (minor) novelist. I guess depending on how far down you define minor I achieved that goal, though I was thinking of perhaps a small blurb in the New York Times more than a pile of self-published books I'm making zero money on.
So in that sense, I am a minor artist. LOL.
Ok, go be a genius now.
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