ARISTOTLE

All men, by nature, desire to know.

Aristotle, Metaphysics

Warm, positive thoughts lifted me from my bed on the second floor of The Redlands Hotel this morning. Leonard Cohen's opening words from "Anthem":

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Just the sound of that music in my head prodded me to face a new day and a new task as naturally as birds begin each morning with lively song. My online Humanities course for the coming fall semester has been on my mind daily while continuing to assemble the content. But this morning when I re-opened my files and notes, I felt I was writing a new chapter. And in fact, I am. Aristotle's Metaphysics is reading like a brand-new text to me now, though I have ploughed through its pages for thirty years.

Currently I am dividing my time between Aristotle and the new paintings I have in progress on the drafting table. I would normally call this a conflict, but over breakfast I enjoyed a Ted Talk presentation on Youtube by Tim Harford: "A Powerful Way to Unleash Your Natural Creativity." In the presentation, he presents his perspective on Slow-Motion Multi-Tasking, with intriguing examples from the work of Einstein, Darwin, Michael Crichton and Twyla Tharp. He convinced me that is alright to multi-task so long as I learn to slow it down and let one task help feed the other rather than conflict.

Reading, writing, composing, painting . . . and several people have already come into the gallery offering pleasant conversations. All of this is working together nicely, and I feel that the world is affirming today. We need more of that. Once I get more progress done on the paintings, I'll post them for readers to see. In the meantime I thank you always for reading.

I make art in order to discover.

I journal when I feel alone.

I blog to remind myself I am not alone.

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