The Font

Creativity is a font, an artesian spring.  Flow is what matters, that’s the satisfying thing.  As with any flow, there is no end-product.  A flow’s ability to support us through time is what matters.  Any given output, once it’s moment has passed, once it has quenched our thirst, or even better, a thirst within a wider community, it may be as carelessly discarded as drops of water falling from our cupped hands as we drink our fill.

Establishing flow, maintaining it, those are the jobs of the thinker, writer, artist.  Here is where our daily concerns should lie, this is where our care should be spent.  Artifacts have value, just as, those drops of precious water, carelessly spilled, will go on to help re-new our font, or feed another spring.

Effort is the work of preparing and maintaining flow.  Output is a gift, a product of grace; a tumbling together of clarity, brilliance, fluidity and solace.  It cannot be held, or owned.  In the attempt to fix it, to hold it in place, we risk stagnation.  The flow is what matters.  Effort freely given is all we have control over.  With it, we become a conduit, without it, we are thwarted, a dam at best.  This may not seem like much, but it is more than enough for me.