I often write, speak and art as a hopeful means of connecting with some new snippet of clarity about some age-old idea. Nothing original, I assume, though it carries a sense of seeming newness to my way of thinking at that moment.
I scratch out thoughts on scraps of paper and add them to loose piles I don’t so much keep as allow to remain where they’ve collected. Nightstand. My desk. The end table next to my chair in the living room.
Below is one such note I found on the carpeted floor behind my home desk, tucked against the wood wall trim painted white. It must have fallen off the back edge of my desk at some point in time. It’s time stamped and dated: 9:20 p.m. / 3.5.23.
(Because I like to know such details, that’s exactly why I date even my scribbled scraps. So I’ll know when I experienced it. It’s a minor measure of context I enjoy.)
Success is vulnerably facing my fears and courageously shining light in this life and in this world everyday. Be here now, present to today’s work. Chop wood, carry water everyday. Create good. Do well by doing good. Pade pade / step by step. Detach.
AI-generated image created using DreamStudio, with this prompt: a bald big bearded middle aged man chops wood with an axe beside a river in the mountains
