\u201cIf anyone asks where you are going,\u201d wrote Graham, \u201cyou may tell him in confidence, whisper the dreadful fact in his ear\u2014\u2018Honestly, I do not know.\u2019\u201d Graham was talking about his zigzag walks. \u201cThis is distinctly not a walk on which to embark with one\u2019s wife,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Why? Why no wife? Maybe it\u2019s because the walker as artist must journey with total abandonment (no competing loyalties for the project at hand). He or she gives up control and, therefore, cannot take responsibility for others who may be affected by the choices (or non-choices) he makes.<\/p>\n
This was the thought Henry David Thoreau must have entertained when, sounding very biblical, he wrote the following: \u201cIf you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again\u2014if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man\u2014then you are ready for a walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s he saying? Is walking only for eunuchs and hermits? I don\u2019t think so. I imagine he is telling us that real artists go all in with their art. It can\u2019t be a part-time nor half-hearted passion. It will require effort, pain and sacrifice<\/p>\n
A bestselling author I know would tell her students they needed three things to be successful: talent, luck and hard work. \u201cAnd,\u201d she added. \u201cIf you do the third, you won\u2019t need as much of the first two.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said (successful walking requires some discomfort). Why would anyone do it?<\/p>\n
My next blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIf anyone asks where you are going,\u201d wrote Graham, \u201cyou may tell him in confidence, whisper the dreadful fact in his ear\u2014\u2018Honestly, I do not know.\u2019\u201d Graham was talking about his zigzag walks. \u201cThis is distinctly not a walk on which to embark with one\u2019s wife,\u201d he added. Why? Why no wife? Maybe it\u2019s because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3502,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3500\/revisions\/3502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}