Tuesday, August 26, 2008

I am differently timed

"Here I am 34 years old, and yet my life is almost wholly unexpanded. How much is in the germ! There is such an interval between my ideal and the actual in many instances that I may say I am unborn.... Methinks my seasons revolve more slowly than those of nature, I am differently timed. I am - contented. This rapid revolution of nature even of nature in me - why should it hurry me. Let a man step to the music which he hears however measured. Is it important that I should mature as soon as an apple tree? Ye, as soon as an oak? May not my life in nature, in proportion as it is supernatural, be only the spring and infantile portion of my spirit's life? Shall I turn my spring to summer? May I not sacrifice a hasty & petty completeness here - to entireness there? If my curve is large - why bend it to a smaller circle? My spirit's unfolding observes not the pace of nature.... If my life is a waiting - so be it. I will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality."

-H.D.Thoreau in his journal, July 19, 1851

I've been having similar thoughts, usually when I walk into my office and see a stack of unopened mail and two unfinished oil paintings. ;P