Large Fierce Mammal

It was with the kind permission of our Esteemed Friend of the LFM Clan Stephen F. Kaufman, of whom we have previously written here, that his deceptively simple but far from inconsequential statement of Truth appears at the top of tonight’s Dark Sentiment. I encourage you to read his words, Goode Reader, and consider their meaning in the light of your own endeavours and experienced outcomes.

Next, and with the aforesaid in mind, please move on to this connected bit of Wisdom —

“My senior high school English Teacher, the esteemed Paul Brison, used to say, “Works of art are never finished; they’re abandoned.” While this wise utterance obviously has applications in every field of human expression, I’ve always embraced it as defining the fundamental difference between proof reading and rewriting to death. In overthinking lies doom.” ~ A Tendency to Overthink

It’s said that a story has three parts — a beginning, a middle, and an end — and ignoring those cases where a story ends on a “cliff hanger” (in which case the writer should be shot), this is true whether the story be enthralling or the biggest waste of time ever put to pen. If the work saw the light of day, it can be safely said that the writer at some point decided, or was compelled from within or without, to make an end of it, “completed” or not.

The end of action in an endeavour must never be confused with its completion. In a voyage from point A to point B, with arrival at point B defined as completion, sinking the ship 10 miles short of the destination represents an end to the voyage, but certainly not completion.

Having now defined completion with a degree of completeness sufficient to the matter at hand, let us now return to the Esteemed Kaufman’s sage advice.

While the end of an endeavour may be forced into being synonymous with its completion (ask anyone who has ever worked to deadline), the doom of stultification awaits he who embraces the belief that there exists a fast track to the point where the work needs to be ere labour may cease absent loss of its creator’s self-respect.

When a person achieves what passes for success today, it is said that they have “arrived”, as though their journey has ended, and their status is to be admired. The yardstick that measures such success is made of treasure and property, and the power they represent is the power to consume, without fear of limitation or consequence. Few today are of the sort who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and never forget where they came from. Who continually strive to be a better creature of Nature than they were yesterday, and measure themselves against that one rather than anyone else. Who truly seek understanding of the Truths that lie outside the artificial constructs of men, and express them through their passions. Who bring those passions to everything they do.

The art and meaning of truly striving is lost in a society that has managed to infuse the next generation of people, those who will be expected to do the work that needs doing, with an expectation of instant, easy success, mostly by permitting them to pass through the public education system on the basis of work that was “good enough”, if it was done at all. Likewise, “education” has been permitted to assume the mantle of a sentence one is forced to serve before the fun starts, rather than the lifelong, joyful process it’s supposed to be. Worst of all, in schools full of mediocrity, lacklustre has been rebranded and sold as the new excellent. ~ Art, Science, Life, and Reality – Certified Organic

These considerations being far from complete, we will revisit the subject before the current season is. I am neither done nor complete, even as I asymptotically approach it.