...entertain a thought without accepting it
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." — Aristotle
My task — if I accept it—is to simmer ideas of art, poetry and written word into a mist rising from a small notebook. The challenge of writing and art in general, from the creator side is willing the images, word collages and voices into something cohesive that can be read or seen.
Forests and trees soothe me. I can’t readily describe what is happening but the bonny entering the trail for a run is never the one emerging a few hours later. Rustling leaves, lingering wildlife and distant sounds of bird call are resonant and immediate but waiting for them to appear as words that capture their quintessence may take a long time.
Sound baths help. I listen and watch a variety of media like documentaries, foreign films and podcasts. They are conversations to me. Design Matters was one of the original sources of deep thinking and creativity and still serves it up more than 10 years later.
Listening to a recent episode of Design Matters, I heard Maria Popova say “I moved from contempt to curiosity” as a way of describing a formally entrenched belief. This simple phrase captures how many people feel about writing. They had a bad experience early on where somebody said something stupid and unraveled their confidence.
There are dozens of things I have moved categorically from contempt to curiosity. Quite literally Maria was one of them. Well, contempt is too hard of a word but hear me out. I was attending an event where Maria was one of many speakers or readers of poetry and written pieces. I knew her from Brain Pickings now The Marginalian a brilliant and widely popular website.
She was a bit elusive and stand-offish but future me understands how this had nothing to do with me or the others I was standing alongside. But in the moment I was profoundly disappointed. So much so that I began reading her newsletter less and less. This hurt me and only me because she is brilliant.
What else have I been wrong about? I once thought I would never be able to swim a mile, finish a triathlon, run an ultra, speak to hundreds of people from the stage, write a book… you get the idea.
What can you get curious about?
Writing and creative people in general belong together. I bring my science brain into art museums and witness revelations in minutes instead of hours or even days.
