pjs & morning coffee

I have tried to sit down and write for a good two or three months now, overwhelmed by a need to write and equally overwhelmed by the idea of writing it all down into something cohesive, something simultaneously self-educating; a valuable idea to mull over or think on. I wrote many unpublished, unfinished, raw drafts. I am forcing myself to "publish", or in the very least, to make public, this entry-- whatever the outcome is to be.

Morning coffee will eventually turn into me getting on with my day, doing something "productive", as it is so called in my head's agenda of things to be done. I have been reading, then listening, then talking to people, and repeat. People, each person as an individual, are so inherently valuable for the things in their heads and hearts. To sit and talk a day with someone as opposed to getting something "productive" done, is a thousand times more valuable, more often than not, for the betterment of your soul, heart, and mind. The greatest art of all is the art of humans in deep, vulnerable communion with one another, or simply being social (although I'm not merely speaking on a simple "how-do-you-do", or small talk of that sort). Artists who write, draw, sing, act, and so on merely comment on the very nature of God's original creation-- the art of community, the art of love.

C.S. Lewis is probably one of my all-time favorite writers. Granted, as much reading as I've done, there is a majority out there to top me and tell me that C.S. Lewis is not the best or even in their top 25 of best writers. Then they might proceed to convince me that I am of another majority, the majority who isn't educated to the vast world of literature, and who likes the first good writer they happen to come across. I might say I am of that "other" majority, and haven't as much time as I might like to write or read, or anything, really. I do, however, view myself as incredibly picky when it comes to good literature, and thus haven't made the time to read every bit of writing I come across, as I consider time a precious and fleeting thing not to be wasted. C.S. Lewis, however, has this way of articulating hopes and fears, love and hate, God and man, in so clear a voice that it's as if he understood what my soul has been trying to tell me for years, but it had not the vocabulary or the ability to form it into intelligible words, merely vague feelings and guttural utterances that are easily to be confused with indigestion. The Screwtape Letters is my most recent reading by him. The wonderful thing about C.S. Lewis is that he is there to write well, and tell you in the plainest, and yet the most poetic, terms of the condition of these things and the nature of one's self. He was not, however, in the business of making self-help a new profession, or an acclaimed genre of writing to the world's populus.

That being said, I've also recently watched Fran Lebowitz in Mark Scorsese's Public Speaking. Her opinions, and stories of her life, are absolutely of the utmost value to any artist, of whatever art form they choose, trying to be a good artist. While I don't agree with Lebowitz's every opinion about life and the like, I think she has it right, for the most part, in her views about art and commentary on how things were in art and how they should be, are almost entirely "on the nose". I recommend Scorsese's documentary and Lewis's book for anyone in search of inspiration and articulate truths, you will find both in each of these works.