Wallowing in mediocrity.
Not to be overly dramatic, but those words can haunt me.
As someone who writes (or tries to), plays the guitar (okay-ish), loves art (but is not an artist), dabbles in poetry (the very bad kind), decorates (but panics when selecting paint color), follows fashion (but sticks to wearing black) ... well, I look at that list and think: I am okay at this, I am good at that. Okay is good. Good is good. But is it wrong to yearn to be GREAT in any one of those things? To be able to put pen to paper effortlessly? Play the guitar without sheet music? Create inspirational poetry? Wear bright yellow (or pink or purple) and own it?
No, it is not wrong, for even as I wallow in mediocrity, even as I struggle to be where I am, the journey of being okay-ish leaves mountains, oceans, galaxies of self exploration and improvement to explore. Being okay-ish dispels complacency and embraces growth.
In truth, I am not so much wallowing as living a question.
The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, said we should have patience with everything that remains unsolved in the heart; that we must love the questions themselves; that it is okay not to look for immediate answers because then we could not live them.
And it is important to live the question.
A question is a good place to begin. It launches astronauts into space, stirs a longing for God, inspires artists, gives imagination to the writer. A question fuels the search, which immediately sets you on a journey.
Recently, I had an opportunity to live the question when a friend and I signed up for a Beginning Drawing class in Aiken. Suddenly I was immersed in a world of composition, harmony, perspective, light and shadow. I learned the different types of graphite pencils and how to find the vanishing point. I learned how to view the world in a different way, and what a beautiful world it is!
Very Bad Art will now be added to my Files of Very Bad Poetry.
Which is all sorts of wonderful. I am living the question and love every minute of it.
Have patience with everything that remain unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, liked locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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