To a Restless Generation

Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

I’m in the thick of a restlessness that is endemic to American culture. So I know I’m not alone in this. We recognize it in Obama’s choice between continuing on a corporate route or going into community service. I see it in myself every time I want the road to be short and the payoff immediate but am faced with something different. Many of us deal with the opposing forces of material wealth and humanitarianism, academia and being self-taught, going down the path we are expected to follow or the one with no particular destination. In our society there is a mounting sense of frustration and maybe even bitterness for the road that is long, unpaved, dimly lit, less traveled, and uncomfortable to walk on. But these are the roads that count, the ones that make and show us who we are.

Despite my feigned understanding of the issue, I ride a pendulum swinging from side to side.

While I was in Barcelona there was a huge pendulum on display in a science museum. Encircling the pendulum were metal bowling-like pins. As the device swung, pulled by the forces of the earth’s rotation, its route altered slightly so that in 24hrs all of the surrounding pins would be knocked down.

Being that it took several swings for a pin to drop, my group was willing to watch the process once before moving on. Our attention span was only slightly less than the children who stayed behind to watch one or two more. But there is tons of information we could have learned if we stayed, making ourselves aware of the forces that pull us this way and that.

Even now my reaction is much the same. I’m barely willing to experience the onset of restlessness before wanting to walk away and focus on something else. However, after reading Ranier Maria Rilke’s 3rd Letter(s) to a Young Poet, I’ve decided to consider the forces. To not respond to the nauseating swing by filling out yet another job application.

I have often made the mistake of confusing patience with laziness or idleness. I’ve worried that if I didn’t travel a set path to a set destination, if I wasn’t ever vigilant about meeting certain targets, I would end up by the wayside like in biblical parables. This fear simply caused me to swing between hyper-vigilance and inactivity. But patience and idleness or listlessness are different. Patience means respecting the process.

If you’re a farmer, being patient doesn’t mean you sit around contemplating life and not planting seeds. You find out what it takes for plants to grow and prepare the ground for the process. But ultimately the seeds take root and grow on their own. You water a creative process that you nurtured but did not invent. No matter how great a farmer you are, you can’t make seeds grow in unfertile ground. I think this process I’m in is about prepping the soil.

This decision has taken a while to solidify, included several conversations with those who have been through it and at least one with a person still in it, Rainer Maria Rilke letters, Tao texts, and other eastern quotes. I don’t take to uncertainty easily. I thought that’s why I became writer, to make sense of the world. Rilke has shown me otherwise. Everything about the creative process is uncertain except our impetus to create.

So what do I get restless about, you may ask? The usual:

Where am I going? What am I doing with my life? What are my next steps? Will I find a job soon? Should I go into a secure industry for the sake of job security or should I do what I love, whatever that may be? Will I fulfill my deep desire to create as a writer and a developer of people? Will I develop the discipline and work ethic to bring my desires into fruition? (The questions use to be much larger than this and involve the state of the world, the environment, etc. I’ve since become more realistic and sensible in focusing my energy on education rather than worry.)

At this point in the essay, none of that seems to matter. My destination questions feel much less pressing than making an attempt to give something everyday, especially small simple things like kind words and smiles, bringing my own bags to grocery stores, and not running away from the processes that I find myself in. For now I don’t have the discipline to write everyday, but I do have the discipline to read daily and reflect on those readings, which will feed my writing when I do sit down and do it. As I practice patience, I will become better at it.

Even in this world of dizzying technology, the best things still take time; the answers to where people and the planet are headed still require thoughtful reflection, diverse opinions, and sensitivity. There is a great need for patience.

And if patience means the opportunity to give your best effort to what you love, be it writing, or nature, community development, education, people, all of the above, then isn’t it worth the wait? Even with the discomfort, patience is a small price to pay for the ability to experience life as an artist does: full of wonder and awe.

*Special thanks to all those who continuously help me to see that the journey is the goal*