A fundamental fallacy of the common perception of thriving is to imagine it in terms of fullness or fatness or being full of the potential to grow and to bear fruit—interpreted by some as a core of humanity: built-to-flourish, kind of thinking.
But this must be balanced with an equally powerful dynamic of depletion and devolution, of things coming to an end, coming to terms with the finality of finitude or finiteness of creation as we know it. We must come to a point of giving up our capacity to even imagine possibility and potential, as a contemporary songwriter has put it, “the art of losing myself.”
Holding these two contrasting and at times opposing views together in creative tension, with humility and a fullness of appetite that can only be satisfied by hunger, is an important and critical role for us creatives. This sort of creativity is something not only expressed but also embodied.
Consider,
Fasting. Develop an appetite for hunger.
By intentionally refraining from constantly indulging ourselves in the best of best–“the fatness of the Earth”–for ourselves we will learn to share in suffering with others. And then from this place to create with others a new reality.
Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash. Thank you!
