growth

4HERO
SPIRITS IN TRANSIT
3:06 – ─────❍──── -5:27
↻ ⊲ Ⅱ ⊳ ↺

I’ve been re-reading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series for the last year. If you know me, you know how dear these books are to me, as I talk about them frequently. I first read them back in 2013, just after having left The Church, and they were pivotal in helping me find a way to view the world after abandoning the evangelical framework that was all I had known since birth.
There’s 41 books in all, written more-or-less in chronological order, spanning about 50 years in-universe and following various characters situated throughout the world, revisiting them years after they were last seen. Save for the first two entries each book stands by itself, but they are all referential to other characters and events, each adding texture to the rich world that Pratchett constructed.
There is debate about the “correct” way in which to read the books, with fans constructing complex webs of character relations and story sequence in order to piece together order within the chaos, but I’m partial to reading them in publishing order. The reason for this is twofold:

1. It’s the way I read them the first time.
2. Reading them in publishing order allows glimpses into Pratchett’s thought process: you get to watch an idea briefly mentioned 3 books prior become fully actualized. You can watch, brick by brick, as the world is constructed around you.

This process of watching the growth and evolution of a work is what keeps me coming back again and again. There is something magical in watching the seeds of an idea bloom into something stupendous and new. And as I ruminate on that point, it forces me to wonder “why do I not allow myself the same experience? Why do I deny myself the same room to breathe and grow, to try and to fail; why do I always expect perfection when no one expects it from me?”
Much of this can be attributed to how art is often viewed as a vector by which we can escape the mundanity of the everyday: if we could just get that one big break it would be smooth sailing from then on, right? It hardly ever works out that way, but there is an entire industry which exists to sell people on the idea that there is an easier way, all you have to do is buy the right tool, the right software, the right guide, and suddenly you will be primed for success. What none of these opportunists mention is the years of hard work and dedication it truly takes in order to become proficient in any craft. This is not new, but the advent of social media has increased the visibility and range of these hucksters to a level heretofore unseen. One of the newest tools of the charlatan is AI Art, which beckons with the promise of being able to give life to the unrealized products of your imagination without having to practice and hone your craft. What it fails to mention on the tin is that this is achieved by scraping results from ArtStation and generally stealing from the work of actual artists.

Anyways, I’m diverging from my point. What was I talking about?

I usually take the bus to work. My return trip places me about 20 minutes from home, so I walk through the park with the eerie blue lights, cut through the nearby apartment complex, and make my way to the overpass, which is my favorite part of the walk. The overpass is nothing special, a small stretch of road that is often ignored by those that don’t live in our neighborhood; it’s lined with a patch of dirt that has been overrun by blackberries, such that in the warm nights of late summer the air is fragrant with their scent. Interspersed between the blackberry bushes are wild peas, specifically lathyrus latifolius. As summer drags on their pods turn from green to brown, eventually splitting into two curled segments that fling the seeds away from the main body of the plant to hopefully take root for the next season.

Something about this compels me. I check on their progress often, finding pods that are on the cusp of splitting and giving them that last little nudge, taking the seeds in hand and scattering them up the path as I go. I do not know why I do this — whether the behavior is the product of my education in biology or an epigenetic remnant — but the act itself helps ground me, reminding me of my role as an organism. I exist in line with, and by the grace of, the ecosystem that surrounds me. How do I contribute to it, and what does it contribute to me? For all our sophistication and knowledge we are still animals, living creatures that require time and energy in order to grow. We think about “growing up” mostly in the physical sense, but every facet of our existence requires care and nurture in order to flourish. Modern life can detach us from that notion, programming our brains to only seek the easiest path forward, and giving up at the first roadblock. I’m not writing this as a “return to tradition” diatribe, but as a reminder to myself.

I’m learning to be okay with slowing down, with taking my time to learn. To see worth in both failure and success, and to reframe my notions of what both of those words mean. It’s easy to feel as if I’m in competition with others, but really I’m only in competition with past versions of myself. So long as I continue to grow, I’m doing fine.