[NewsScan Daily, 28 June 2004]

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: BEGINNING YOUR NEXT MASTERPIECE

Irish author John O'Donoghue writes:

"Aristotle said in the first sentence of his Metaphysics, 'All men by nature desire to know.' This is the secret magic and danger of having a mind. Even though your body is always bound to one place, your mind is a relentless voyager. The mind has a magnificent, creative restlessness that always brings it on a new journey. Even in the most sensible and controlled lives there is often an undertow of longing that would deliver them to distant shores. There is something within you that is not content to remain fixed within any one frame. You cannot immunize yourself against your longing. You love to reach beyond, to discover something new. Knowing calls you out of yourself. Discovery delights the heart. This is the natural joy of childhood and the earned joy of the artist. The child and the artist are pilgrims of discovery. When you limit your life to the one frame of thinking, you close out the mystery. When you fence in the desires of your heart within fixed walls of belief, morality, and convention, you dishonour the call to discovery. You create grey fields of 'quiet desperation.' Discovery is the nature of the sou1. There is some wildness of divinity in us, calling us to live everything. The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh said, 'To be dead is to stop believing in / The masterpieces we will begin tomorrow.'"

[See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060955589/newsscancom/ref=nosim for John O'Donohue's "Eternal Echoes: Exploring Our Yearning to Belong"—or look for it in your favorite library. Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy program.]