Finishing Things

Excellent! Although lots of ground is covered in this, I have also uncovered one its key ideas in my own journeys the last few years:

my joy for that subject was being whittled away and I didn’t even realize it. But I got my joy back because nobody can take it from me

I started practicing more drawing around the time that generated images crossed the bridge from slightly-horrifying-in-its-offness to can-somewhat-convincingly-conjure-almost-whatever-you-want. I was spurred by the nagging question, "Why would I bother to do this [viz. learn to make my own art 'the hard way' if I can generate it]?" At first, I was hoping to form a specific answer in words, something I could write down or type in a file and then save. However, after a few years, I am now surrounded by answers to that question, some of which do translate into words, and some of which do not. Either way, I no longer feel nagged; I feel comfort from being able to draw.

When I take a sharp bird photograph, I enjoy looking closely and marveling at the unending intricacies (ex. coloration, shine/iridescence, and the overlapping pattern in a hummingbird's gorget). Of the feathers, dapples of sunlight, and every single twig and piece of bark and leaf and patch of bokeh, none of it is approximated. I cannot take a picture of a statistical agglomeration of a species of bird; I can only take pictures of specific, individual birds. In addition to the photograph being a connection to who/where I was in that moment, and a connection to nature which makes it all possible in the first place, there's an honesty and "realness" to every single detail that brings me joy.

---

Separately, this is something I have meditated on...

Honestly, if I had to pick one resolution I wish I could stick with all year long, it would be to consume less of other people’s opinions and channel all of that time and energy into creating things!

...ever since stumbling years ago on Nietzsche's comment in Ecce Homo where he presents consuming others' writings as a break from his own work because it can encroach on developing his own ideas (italics and ellipses are his):

As far as I in particular am concerned, reading in general belongs to my means of recuperation: consequently it belongs to that which rids me of myself, to that which enables me to wander in strange sciences and strange souls—to that, in fact, about which I am no longer in earnest. Indeed, it is while reading that I recover from my earnestness. During the time that I am deeply absorbed in my work, no books are found within my reach; it would never occur to me to allow any one to speak or even to think in my presence. For that is what reading would mean.... Has any one ever actually noticed, that, during the period of profound tension to which the state of pregnancy condemns not only the mind, but also, at bottom, the whole organism, accident and every kind of external stimulus acts too acutely and strikes too deep? Accident and external stimuli must, as far as possible, be avoided: a sort of walling-of-one's-self-in is one of the primary instinctive precautions of spiritual pregnancy. Shall I allow a strange thought to steal secretly over the wall? For that is what reading would mean.... The periods of work and fruitfulness are followed by periods of recuperation: come hither, ye delightful, intellectual, intelligent books!