IN SEARCH OF INSPIRATION

OCTOBER 4, 2024 – Lord knows there’s lots to think and talk about these days: campaign shenanigans; suffering—and conspiracy theories (will they never end?) associated with disaster recovery in the wake of Helene; mass war criminality in Sudan; Antarctica turning green from global warming; the staggering blow to the economy if we were to round up and deport millions of illegal immigrants; et cetera, but I decided to take the day off from throwing more gasoline on the flames. I’d spent the day doing just the opposite: working in the tree garden, maintaining and expanding the trails and pruning the lower branches from white pine saplings. As far as I could hear or see, neither the earth nor its offspring had any regard one way or the other for humankind’s undertakings.

As my shears released fresh pine scent every time I severed a tier of lower branchs from the dozens of trees I pruned, I wondered what I should write about this evening: the work before me or matters of concern evinced by the latest developments on multiple news fronts around the globe. But as the sun entered its early decline in the western sky, I felt as though the environment had interrupted my supply chain of thoughts and words. Of what significance were they, really—my thoughts and words?

Very little, I concluded. This led me consider wrapping up this blog, just as I’ve concluded many other projects in life. I’m closing in on 2,000 posts comprising over 2 million words over five-and-a-half years. An average length novel is 100,000 words, so end-to-end, this blog would be the equivalent of 20 bound volumes on the shelf. But in the scheme of things, “So what?”

The bigger issue in my little world, anyway, is that for every project put to rest at one stage or another of completion, another must take its place. As of this writing I have yet to develop the inspiration for an effort, an outlet, a discipline to succeed Write Makes Might. Until I do, I feel chained to the blog.

To spark an idea for a new project, I watched and listened to a 1992 recording of the Berlin Philharmonic’s vibrant performance of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7. This was not a wise choice for my purpose. Bruckner’s music affects the listener much in the way that Mahler’s works do. After a half hour, I felt as if I’d been under the influence of a mysteriously transcendent force, and when I emerged from the other side of the exposure, I wasn’t quite the same person I’d been. No matter how many times I listen to Mahler or Bruckner, there’s always something new to the experience; something new and inexpressibly ethereal. The net result is that I’m placed in a deep state of non-verbal contemplation; meditation, some would call it. Whatever the condition is called, it leaves me grappling with a host of ineluctable and irresolvable feelings about life . . . and concluding my day with yet another post.

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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson