tree
Something I read once, paraphrased from John Berger, art critic and artist:
Acquiring things is a poor alternative for fashioning objects.
How do I feel after buying something? Momentarily happy, excited about my purchase. But that quickly fades. Creating something, though, gives me immense satisfaction, both in the process of creating and every time I use/look at/wear/share my creation.
I agree. I made some Christmas placemats like you made for me. I gave them to Dave this weekend. He didn’t seem too impressed, but I still feel great about it. I also love creating sumptious meals.
Beautiful and wise words. They remind me this:
“The little prince went away,
to look again at the roses.
“You are not at all like my rose,” he said.
“As yet you are nothing.
No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one.
You are like my fox when I first knew him.
He was only a fox
like a hundred thousand other foxes.
But I have made a friend,
and now he is unique in all the world.”
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on.
“One could not die for you.
To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think
that my rose looked just like you
–the rose that belongs to me.
But in herself alone she is more important
than all the hundreds of you
other roses: because it is she that I have watered;
because it is she
that I have put under the glass globe;
because it is for her
that I have killed the caterpillars
(except the two or three we saved
to become butterflies);
because it is she that I have listened to,
when she grumbled,
or boasted,
or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is MY rose.”