Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.
Ray Bradbury
I read Ray Bradbury in high school but I never read that quote. It might have saved me some grief over the years as I tried to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Instead, I spent far too much time thinking I had to have a “real job.”
So in spite of my life-long interest in art, and theater, and, of course, writing, I never really thought about those being my vocation. Those were just the extra things that you did outside the job that made you money.
DISCLAIMER: Jobs in the arts are of course “real jobs.” But I come from a tradition where people spent forty or fifty years working for the same company. There’s more to that, but hopefully you get my point.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a fascinating career in politics and government. But I’ve always imagined something more.
I just never had the courage to pursue the artsy-fartsy aspect of my personality.
Well, maybe the fartsy part, but I never wanted to be President.
If you know, you know.
The Duchess of Cornwall knows.
I digress.
Around the time I was fifty I realized that I should say “I am a writer” and not “I want to be a writer.”
And in the last ten years or so, I’ve worked to pursue the art and the theater side as well.
I like to imagine what life would have been like if I’d pursued those years ago. I’m just thankful that I get to now.
I’m thankful for the imagnation that lets me explore the creative side.
I’m thankful for those who have followed that imagination far longer than I have and who have given us movies, and books, and music, and art, and so much more.
And I’m thankful for the eyes of a child who can look at me and see the Jolly Old Elf.
It’s like Lewis Carroll said:
“Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”
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I read Ray Bradbury in high school but I never read that quote. It might have saved me some grief over the years as I tried to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
