The Will To Live

I floated a paper boat on the lake-like puddle formed by yesterday’s storm. The boat sailed tall and upright for a short distance and then gradually tipped to one side. A drowning ant climbed onto the boat, and when the boat filled in with more water, the ant climbed higher and higher and was in no hurry to die. That tiny creature somehow found a will and a way to live. Some of us are too quick to rush for the exit. Especially, the tortured creative.

Zoom in on the lives of some of these creatives, and you are likely to see addiction to substances (chocolates and all things sweet for me), obsessive-compulsive behavior, scant attention to nutrition and exercise, burrowing themselves in imaginary worlds for long periods of time, a reluctance to interact with others. Some of the insanely creative perhaps never published a book or held an exhibition, or performed in public but ever content to simply create. Kafka’s works would never have made it to the world if it weren’t for his friend, who disregarded the author’s wish to burn all his writings.

We may not even know of some of the talents that the world lost because the creator or composer didn’t make their work public. Performing artists, on the other hand, thrive on the energy of the audience, but they are reported to have their own brand of neurosis. We seek aloneness, we cherish aloneness, and we really, truly cannot have enough of aloneness because therein lies all we need to know, but therein also is a darkness so dense that unless we hold tight to some form of belief, whether in us or others, we are most likely to succumb to the darkness.

Got to step out, have fun, and bolster the will to live.