I listened to a podcast the other day, where a man was interviewing two highly acclaimed musicians who taught at an academy. The man raved to these fellows about how entertaining their work was. They nodded and thanked him but with little satisfaction from the encouragement. He was surprised at their reactions and inquired. The musicians confessed that there was no joy in what they did anymore - they had studied and learned so much of the art that is was no longer an art but a job.
It saddens me to watch so many people go through the motions while their spirit remains motionless. The wonder that once captivated their attention and strength now annoys them and leaves them tired.
There are principles here that are more than just finding what your passion is or honing your skillset to achieve excellence at your job. Being a human being supposes that we are not simply doing or did but becoming increasingly fascinated by the way it all works.
But as I put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed an extraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened—dawn and death and so on—as if THEY were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as NECESSARY as the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not. There is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination. You cannot IMAGINE two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail.
Each morning we wake is as miraculous as the night before when our eyes closed shut. It is not natural and inevitable that we rise from rest only to wrestle the day - it is magical.
The whole thing is a balance of our wonder and reason. We live and we move in awe that we can move at all - anyone with joint pains can relate. It is perfectly logical that because the knee bone is connected to the shin bone and then the ankle that the three will move together. The joy of living is watching them all work and not losing our wonder like a toddler taking our first steps.
For a boy of seven, it is astonishing to be told that Timmy walked to a door and opened it to see a dragon. Yet, to a child of three, he is astonished by Tommy walking to the door.
Life is precious because we have it. The things that we hold in common are the very things that we ought to see as so uncommon. There is a magic to it all and a call to wonder. It is a call to wonder while we work.
You may not be enjoying what you do right now, and that's ok. There are problems with any worthy endeavor that we pursue. As my father always says, "Anything of value takes work, time, and effort." But I do encourage you to take a step back sometime and see the beauty of the painting. We can easily be caught up in the brushstrokes and forget that there is a painting we are working on. Remember the joy with which you started, and that will carry you through to the end.
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