Ichigo ichie, or "each moment, only once"
is probably the ultimate expression of Zen.
I picked up some new incense on the trip. Enjoying one of the new scents for the first time, Mimosa.
I have been working with someone to proof the early Cat-Tales, and had to resist the temptation to polish or rewrite as I went.
Isaac Asimov, probably the most prolific fiction and non-fiction writer out there, had a rule about writing down the thought and never looking back.
I had a garden once that periodically produced the most deliciously sweet smell. It was a rented house, I didn't plant the garden and I don' t have any knowledge of flowers to know what they were. Some of the new incense I bought, I picked because it might be that scent.
That is not artificially trying to capture a moment that is gone, but to evoke it and reconnect to the beauty I knew at that time.
There was a perfect moment in Venice, on a vaporetto, the public transportation, going out to one of the islands. The sun was warm, but it wasn't oppressively hot. The air felt wonderful on my face, my hair was blowing in it. Everything around me was incredibly beautiful. A perfect moment. Now, I reconnect with some piece of that when I see the sun shimmering on the water, and that "nice day" smell is in the air.
It isn't trying to artificially capture a moment that is gone, it is reconnecting with that person I once was.
Accepting the transitory is part of it. That's what makes it possible to touch it again.
Enjoying those moments fully, imprinting on them.
Movies lost a lot of their magic when they became something you could own. You can buy it and hold it in your hand and watch it whenever you want. So what.
Reading, you bring so much more of yourself to the experience. Theatre and comics too, you fill in from your own head. That's what makes these media more real to readers.
Other artists I know are fascinated by their medium and their understanding their craft. Comic writers seem like they may as well be hanging drywall.
If you don't have a burning desire to act, you shouldn't be an actor. There are 10,000 who do all vying for one opportunity to do so. You have no business taking up that slot.
If you are dead inside, if you've snuffed out your imagination, you have no business doing anything creative.
Now then, if that was the real thing, what the heck is faux zen?
This: garfield minus garfield
