There's a Zen saying, "Out of the mud grows a lotus."
As I write this, we're in the mud. The coronavirus is still spreading and millions (including me) have been instructed not to leave our homes for at least twelve weeks (eleven to go). Loved ones are dying, the future is uncertain, and some of the people in charge are cretins.
That's the mud.
What will bring out the lotus?
For some people, it's suddenly finding they have more free time (if that's not you, keep reading anyway, we'll get to you).
How will you spend this time?
The internet is full of suggestions for how to spend your extra time, many of which strike me as time killers.
If anything, the current state of affairs is telling us we never know how much time we have, so killing more of it seems foolish.
As Shakespeare said--or warned--in Richard II, "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."
Why not make your goal creating something only you can create?
Not because you're a genius but because you're you.
The obvious channels of expression, like books, scripts, stories, poems, drawings, paintings, sculptures, etc. are fine if they excite you.
It could just as easily be making a piece of furniture, creating an indoor garden, coming up with original recipes, or using Zoom or Skype to give solace to isolated friends or strangers.
It could be something I've never heard of and can't even imagine.
Finding it is your job.
How to find it
It's possible you've already found it, but you never followed through because you didn't have time. Maybe you started and you meant to go on, but life and obligations interfered and you stopped. It may be represented by a half-finished novel or a piece of pottery gathering dust, or the intention to connect with friends from years ago.
If you don't know what it is, or you do and you want to recapture the magic feeling it once gave you, use some of your new free time to daydream.
Yes, this was easier when we had the option of strolling through a park or walking along a beach, but you can also do it after everybody else has gone to bed, or before they wake up.
Go to the free site, calmsound.com and listen to gentle rain, or a country garden, or the ocean. If you're inspired by seeing nature as well as hearing it, they also feature videos of the Maldives, a country glen, an enchanted forest, and an Australian beach.
Close your eyes, remember what you dreamed of doing when you were a kid, or what made you happy before you had to stop doing it because responsibilities intervened.
You'll know it when you see it--or rather, when you feel it. It'll feel like how artist Milton Glaser felt about illustrating Dante's Purgatory: "I can't tell you how much I looked forward to working on it--it is still thrilling to me to be able to sit down in front of a piece of paper and invent the world."
How to do it
You've found it. Now what?
Is there a secret? Something they don't want you to know but that I will reveal to you if you send me lots of money?
No, nobody's trying to keep it from you and there's no charge. It's simple. Not always easy, but simple:
- Start
- Continue
- Fail (because we can imagine perfection but not attain it)
- Learn from the failure
- Continue
- repeat 3 through 5
Number one is the hardest but the other steps have their drawbacks, too.
So why do it?
Because it means something to you.
Because in some way large or small, you'll be contributing something to the world that is part of you.
It could bring you world-wide fame and fortune, or you may invent something that will benefit millions--but probably not.
Maybe it'll be a memoir you self-publish that's discovered by a curious great-grandchild years after you're gone, and suddenly a little bit of you will live again.
Maybe it'll be a window garden that someone walking by sees and is reminded that life will blossom again.
Maybe it'll be a poem nobody ever reads, but having written it makes you feel more complete and that, in turn, makes you a less distracted or frustrated parent.
But what if you don't have more time?
Some people actually have less time these days. They may be working from home and homeschooling their kids. They may have more responsibility for their parents or grandparents. What should you do if that's you?
Exactly the same thing.
Homeschooling your kids? What greater lesson can you teach them (by example) than to express themselves? Don't expect them to appreciate it now, of course, but the time will come.
Working from home and too busy with work? An article in the Guardian about a palliative nurse who counsels the dying revealed the top regrets her patients expressed :
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard. (This from every male patient she dealt with.)
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish I had let myself be happier.
Every one of those, in one way or another, is about being yourself, expressing yourself.
You do have the time.
Cut out 30 minutes of TV or browsing the internet.
Get your kids involved in your creative activity.
Declare a lunch hour and lock yourself in a room, put in earplugs or crank up the white noise machine and do whatever you're meant to do.
It's not too late
Whether life gives us another week, another year, another decade or more, it's not too late to take that first step.
As Oscar Wilde said (or should have, in case he didn't): "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."
I hope that when you look back on these dark days you'll remember it was also the time you decided or renewed your decision to be--and share--yourself.
