Pearl S. Buck on the Creative Mind

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…

They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.

~ Pearl S. Buck

From today's Mussar Kallah

Rabbi Ira Stone taught,
"The definition of love is to be obligated."
"When you resist obligation, you are turning away from love."

There must have been a time.

There must have been a time when everyone had seen a great tree taken down.

There must have been a time when everyone knew, they'd be cutting down the big tree on Main Street. And everyone would know the reasons why, and think on their memories, and when the time came a little crowd would gather-- the children, especially-- to wait and watch it fall.

A time when everyone had done their time at the side of a dying man or woman or child. When death and desctruction were personal. When there was time to make time.

Now I sit in my apartment and frantically try to hide from the deaths of trees I've known for years, try to think of how to pack up what work and where to go, too much to do to spend the day weeping and letting go.

It's the same denial I've seen turned toward human death. The same helplessness. The same turning away.