What do you think are the issues in the now & here life that can make a person’s journey-through-life boring? For sure, you will not only have one item in your list of answers to such question when you begin to take a closer look into your very own personal life experiences.
To me, one issue is certain – lack of higher purpose, that is, a purpose coupled with enhancing & enriching diversification along with a variety of engagement called “Avocation“. By definition, Avocation refers to activities taken up in addition to one’s main profession or calling in life.
The making of a creative work of art such as this piece, is an activity or avocation that simply started off as mere wishful thinking.
There were lingering moments of stargazing at first about what this youngster then would like to pursue as an avocation. Many times I would attempt to compose a narrative story of my personal life just for keeps. In fact, I still have drafts of those materials in my file.
The three major drawbacks that kept me undecided for long are: First, my thinking that I am a nobody and I know of none in my immediate progenitor who was literati. And besides, literature is one of those subjects during my elementary and secondary school day that isn’t much of my delight. Even in my first two years in the tertiary level, my focus was business mathematics and/or accounting.
The other drawback revolved around the question of personal motive and purpose: What to write? What for? Why would I write? Later, I even came across daunting comments like, “There’s no money in writing”.
Well, it came to a point in my intermittent brooding for years that writing, just like any other creative works such as public speaking, fashion designing, cooking, housekeeping, gardening, handicraft making, etc. are “Functions of Creativity” that COME REAL ONLY BY MAKING IT HAPPEN. In other words, nobody is born as “IS” already. One has to go out of one’s shell, so to speak, tread and explore into the open field of possibilities, and hope to find his likes and interests. Once they are found, pursue on them like a thirsty deer panting for the stream.
The key elements then are Seeking, Finding, and Pursuing a potential Craft or Trade amongst the myriad of possible choices around. Skills development and mastery of a chosen craft follow suit as a consequence of constant practice, diligent exercises, disciplined focus, and above all, faith and persistent patience and endurance from start-up to completion and fulfilment.
Lastly, the subtle drawback that seemed to hold me in going all out into doing a creative work of art is the question of contents and their significance. Of course, I understood that motive and purpose differ and vary in each individual person or writer for that matter. Furthermore, motive and purpose are determined and conditioned by personal values, conviction, and system of beliefs or world views.
Providently though, the driving power that moved and motivated me to write, what to write, and why write can be summed up into this: My freely received conviction and assurance from above that as the “Masterpiece” of my Eternal Creator & Master, I need to live up to why I was made alive for. I am made to believe that every thinking and feeling moral being is designed and made in the beginning in the “Image and Likeness” of the eternally creative God of goodness, truth, and beauty. Equipped, therefore, with this conviction the challenge for me is to tap, make alive and real, the freely-given yet hidden treasures within. For, these treasures are too precious to keep all to myself. I need to share them.
Fired up with the spirit of the above summation, the literati in my person is born and nourished in time seasoned with motivation and commitment to express who I am, what I can do, and how much more I can be for the praise and glory of Him Who made me to belong with the diverse community of the Creative Ones.