I don’t think someone can create indefinitely. Sometimes I see artists giving expression and meaning to things that are already exhausted. I think we’ve all done it. In a way, it is expected from artists to do the same thing over and over and over. That is decadence. I admire some people that try to awaken from this productive hypnosis. They want to live because they are defying decadence. They are defying decadence because they want to live.

We live in idolatry of Disaster. We act sometimes like mere puppets stuffed with stubborn and argumentative red cells, who love to birth history by disgust. We secretly adore Disaster and dread adapting ourselves to the possibility of Hope. That’s why touchy-feelings bother some people.

As an artist, I realized that when there is an excess of subjectivity, that leads to either an unbearable megalomaniac state, or a path down to self-denigration. I see it on other artists as well: either they love themselves too much, or they hate themselves too much. It’s exhausting.

The fall from a moment of mundane vagueness into a whirlwind of feelings sometimes is steep and sudden, and messy. Despite the anxiety, I think those moments of absolute confusion provide things that really matter, like renewed expectations, and a sense of real hope. Too bad we forget those so soon.

I am a teetotaler. I really don’t know how I came to be one. I think it was a natural development. I didn’t know this had a label, though. I learned about it watching Downton Abbey. I guess everything has a label these days.

“When I eat cake, I prefer the cherry.”

And here comes Mr. Pumblechook! This is a fun character. He is the local seedsman (he sells seeds and other stuff). He is a food hoarder, greedy, and a bully. I just love that name: Pumblechook.

There’s nothing left to try
There’s no place left to hide
There’s no greater power
Than the power of good-bye

In pre-Victorian days, convicts were given numbers instead of names, to stigmatize them as nonpersons and to keep them from being identified. On the other hand, carriages and hotel rooms were entitled to names instead of digits.

“No one, at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since, in spite of the fact that children are now comparatively sanely treated, no novelist has shown the same power of entering into the child’s point of view.” George Orwell.