The progressive, enduring work and commitment to bring to pass ideas, to form something that resembles a mentally-conceived image, to start with little-to-nothing and then over a long time create an object of beauty…. These are universal tacit practices that speak to what it means to be human.
To describe art is not to experience it. To see a family is not to sense the dynamics of care and support it brings. To read a manuscript is not even close to the thrill of discovery, to the wonder of development, to the satisfaction of addressing rigorous critique. To live passively in the milieu of a free, democratic country is nothing like personally embracing the trade-offs, drama, risk and courage that lead to the open (safe) exchange of ideas and aspirations that are the life blood of enabled innovation by its citizens.
Even the solo artist, the solo sailor, the solo author stand on the shoulders of those who came before, and benefit from the crafts of those who provide the supply chain of resources that culminate in the masterpiece, the voyage, the publication.
The hours invested lead to the assembly of what is most deeply ours – community, contributions to a better world, ideas that inspire, systems that grow and improve.
Disappointing setbacks can become innovative resets when the pieces are swept into a new configuration then infused with compassionate acts of redeeming what was lost. If we’ve stumbled as a community through neglect, myopic vision, greed, or even more sinister endemic failings of human nature, it is incumbent on us to reject fear, and to cleave to hope for what we’ve already tasted as the richness of “hours and ours”, where we each have more opportunity to thrive together than if we were to abandon this ship of state. There are real, tangible improvements to be brought forth each day in our circles of influence.
