Because you have to. Because life is an endurance test. Because the pockets of good make the mountains of shit just about manageable.
Resilience. Perseverance. Strength. Tenacity.
Possibly not the things Oscar Wilde was thinking of when this (not quite verbatim) quote was linked to him. But I can think he meant this kind of thing.
It is a quote I have loved for many a year. And I have loved Oscar Wilde for many a year. I found someone like Shakespeare far too hard to try to teach myself and understand. But Wilde? He always struck a chord. Maybe it’s the thing of the outsider, the outcast? As someone who never felt they quite fitted in, one gravitates to like minds.
And how did I gravitate to Oscar. I tried to study him and read things. I wasn’t always successful. Also along side him I read James Joyce. There was a pull to Irish writers and poets.
I digress, slightly.
Tonight’s piece came to being from…a spark. A spark I wasn’t looking for. I follow an artists group on Facebook. I’ve never shared a single thing on it. I still don’t consider myself an artist. I call myself all manner of other ridiculous names. Doodler. Collagist…I dunno…anything but “artist”! And if I DO use that word, it is usually in quotation marks, and if it isn’t, I am trying to employ a wonderful display of Wilde-like bravado.
Anyway, the group. A member shared a post with a list of ideas of inspiration of what to try if you found yourself in an artistic rut. I’m not really in one as such right now, but I was reading the list anyway, and I get to number six, “work with your favourite quote” – and like a bolt…it was August, Colchester, the intense joy I had when Martin Chambers’ drum rumble intro to Message Of Love begins and so begins Chrissie “now the reason we’re here…” – IS TO HEAR THIS AMAZING FUCKING SONG!
And there it all was, laid out before me. The piece almost made itself…already clearly defined. Chrissie, among the stars, reminding us, through Oscar, to KEEP LOOKING UP! Don’t worry about tripping up, cos you’re just looking up there and you miss your footing and you stumble. Keep looking up, cos that’s where the good stuff is!
Belief! Not in a god or luck or anything else. Believe – in you! And your ability to get through. To make the good stuff count and get the mountains of shit to look like molehills!
Thank you, Oscar. Thank you, Chrissie.
