My latest book: Madeleine L’Engle’s Circle of Quiet, book 1 of the Crosswick Journals.
When we are self-conscious, we cannot be wholly aware; we must throw ourselves out first. This throwing ourselves away is the act of creativity. So, when we wholly concentrate, like a child in play, or an artist at work, then we share in the act of creation. We not only escape time, we also escape our self-conscious selves.
I knew that the moment I started worrying about whether or not I was good enough for the job, I wouldn’t be able to do it.
Of course. It’s all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I’d never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but was it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn’t what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.