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silveradeptChallenge Number 6 is succinct in text and broad in its scope:
Well, that's certainly a thing, isn't it? Having primed us with questions of what we would like to see more of or what we ordinarily wouldn't be able to finish based on our current situations, here is the call to action, to create for ourselves a temporary bubble of time, energy, and motivation to create something. And to avoid the traps right at the side of the road that suggest the only acceptable creation is super-long, or using skills that haven't been refined, or that needs a "proper" idea instead of writing the first thing that comes to mind, or requires the full amount of polish and thinking, or a minimum time commitment. And to get our very vigilant and diligent RSI prevention cats off of us long enough to actually do the thing.
The prompt requires none of these things (except, perhaps, moving the cat). It says "Create something." Full stop. And, if you feel like sharing, share out the thing that you have created for others to see. There's no requirement that anyone but you see the thing that you have created, and therefore, there is no person but you who has to pass judgment upon the thing that you have created. It doesn't have to be positive judgment. You could create a messy thing, or an incomplete thing, or an ugly thing, or something that is meant to externalize, however temporarily, the howling brainweasels and their constant refrain of "not enough, never enough."
You could create a work of fluff and saccharine positivity that is very clearly powered by a forsaken child as a way of raging against the constant drumbeat that everything is normal and fine, and those who declare the Emperor is naked are troublemakers who should be shunned. You could create a work of dystopia and despair where finding a flower in the middle of an irradiated field is the beginning of a long-awaited prophecy that brings change and hope to a people who have been waiting for a sign through the generations was a way of trying to express your own hope that the nightmare will start to fade. Eventually.
Maybe it only takes a hundred words. Maybe only six. Or maybe it takes more.
Perhaps only
all you need is a
haiku's shape.
(How are you, by the way? Have you eaten? Drank? Taken those compounds that are necessary for you? Performed an ablution (or many)? Traced the sacred ritual(s) and pathways of inspiration? Have you sung or danced, shouted or spoken, given physical form to the things that cannot stay inside, or found the corner of your experience from where you can watch the thoughts as they float by, unconcerned about what they contain or demand, but able to examine them as the creations they are in their own right?)
(Have you rested recently?)
Perhaps you would like to construct a rhyme,
Deceiving expectations at every occasion.
Or today is the day that you sketch a mind horse, narrate that the Martians have landed, line up the perfect shot and catch a frame of everything exactly where you want it to be, or find the pulse that makes the visuals or the sounds all line up together where they haven't before. Perhaps today is the first stitch, or the last stitch, taking a block of medium and removing everything that is not an elephant, a dragon, a story, stroking with brush or pen, ink or color, transforming a shitpost into a work of sublime lettering and illumination. Perhaps today the footnotes have more words in them than the text itself.
Today, then, we are called to create, and when we succeed, it is time to declare victory over entropy, victory over doubt, victory against all the obstacles, imposed by self or others, Maybe this victory is only for you, in the place where only you dare to walk, and you hold it close to yourself to protect it from the outside, a spark that only needs to find a place to be before it can become a roaring fire to warm yourself by. Maybe this victory is one you proudly display, a badge of honor, a service decoration, a trophy to add to your space, another thing for your hoard. Your power grows from the thing you have brought into being.
If I have done this correctly and spun a pathway of thread to follow, whether to the center of the labyrinth or to its exit, whether your destiny is to slay the monsters or to escape the prison, if you trace the path laid out and therefore fulfill or escape what has been foretold, or if you cut the knot and make your own path;
If I have done this correctly, weaving the ritual into words carried on photons over networks of community containing the old and the new, then there should be something there that was not when you began this journey.
If I have done this correctly, then through this I have created something. And if I have not, well, perhaps tomorrow you will succeed instead.
In your own space, create something.
Well, that's certainly a thing, isn't it? Having primed us with questions of what we would like to see more of or what we ordinarily wouldn't be able to finish based on our current situations, here is the call to action, to create for ourselves a temporary bubble of time, energy, and motivation to create something. And to avoid the traps right at the side of the road that suggest the only acceptable creation is super-long, or using skills that haven't been refined, or that needs a "proper" idea instead of writing the first thing that comes to mind, or requires the full amount of polish and thinking, or a minimum time commitment. And to get our very vigilant and diligent RSI prevention cats off of us long enough to actually do the thing.
The prompt requires none of these things (except, perhaps, moving the cat). It says "Create something." Full stop. And, if you feel like sharing, share out the thing that you have created for others to see. There's no requirement that anyone but you see the thing that you have created, and therefore, there is no person but you who has to pass judgment upon the thing that you have created. It doesn't have to be positive judgment. You could create a messy thing, or an incomplete thing, or an ugly thing, or something that is meant to externalize, however temporarily, the howling brainweasels and their constant refrain of "not enough, never enough."
You could create a work of fluff and saccharine positivity that is very clearly powered by a forsaken child as a way of raging against the constant drumbeat that everything is normal and fine, and those who declare the Emperor is naked are troublemakers who should be shunned. You could create a work of dystopia and despair where finding a flower in the middle of an irradiated field is the beginning of a long-awaited prophecy that brings change and hope to a people who have been waiting for a sign through the generations was a way of trying to express your own hope that the nightmare will start to fade. Eventually.
Maybe it only takes a hundred words. Maybe only six. Or maybe it takes more.
Perhaps only
all you need is a
haiku's shape.
(How are you, by the way? Have you eaten? Drank? Taken those compounds that are necessary for you? Performed an ablution (or many)? Traced the sacred ritual(s) and pathways of inspiration? Have you sung or danced, shouted or spoken, given physical form to the things that cannot stay inside, or found the corner of your experience from where you can watch the thoughts as they float by, unconcerned about what they contain or demand, but able to examine them as the creations they are in their own right?)
(Have you rested recently?)
Perhaps you would like to construct a rhyme,
Deceiving expectations at every occasion.
Or today is the day that you sketch a mind horse, narrate that the Martians have landed, line up the perfect shot and catch a frame of everything exactly where you want it to be, or find the pulse that makes the visuals or the sounds all line up together where they haven't before. Perhaps today is the first stitch, or the last stitch, taking a block of medium and removing everything that is not an elephant, a dragon, a story, stroking with brush or pen, ink or color, transforming a shitpost into a work of sublime lettering and illumination. Perhaps today the footnotes have more words in them than the text itself.
Today, then, we are called to create, and when we succeed, it is time to declare victory over entropy, victory over doubt, victory against all the obstacles, imposed by self or others, Maybe this victory is only for you, in the place where only you dare to walk, and you hold it close to yourself to protect it from the outside, a spark that only needs to find a place to be before it can become a roaring fire to warm yourself by. Maybe this victory is one you proudly display, a badge of honor, a service decoration, a trophy to add to your space, another thing for your hoard. Your power grows from the thing you have brought into being.
If I have done this correctly and spun a pathway of thread to follow, whether to the center of the labyrinth or to its exit, whether your destiny is to slay the monsters or to escape the prison, if you trace the path laid out and therefore fulfill or escape what has been foretold, or if you cut the knot and make your own path;
If I have done this correctly, weaving the ritual into words carried on photons over networks of community containing the old and the new, then there should be something there that was not when you began this journey.
If I have done this correctly, then through this I have created something. And if I have not, well, perhaps tomorrow you will succeed instead.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-12 04:51 am (UTC)