Thoughts on Productivity

A telegram from Dorothy Parker to her editor, 1945

"I don't believe that we are what we do although many thinkers argue otherwise. I believe that what we do is, very often, a poor approximation of what we are -- an imperfect manifestation of a much better totality. Even the best of us sometimes bite off, as it were, less than we can chew. When Natasha bites William she's saying only part of what she wants to say to him. She's saying, William! Wake up! Remember! But that gets lost in a haze of pain, his."

-- Donald Barthelme, "Jaws"

new, terrible obstacles seem unsurmountable 

when rising up

but then, after showing teeth, fall back 

and circle, distracted.

on days when i cannot paint am i still 

a painter?

on days when i do not make anything 

am i still one of the good ones

leaning imperceptibly into the green?

my identity as a maker grids everything, 

allows for the job,

the sadness. makes poverty bearable, 

though it still hurts.

everything hurts but not as much as we 

think it will. a little less.

or, if two things hurt, the relief of one, 

especially before relief was expected,

feels better than anything.

the gods which guide my happiness are 

carved from rock and far away, 

faceless walls of sediment shifting 

in their beds, drybrushed.

sleeping on the couch does not 

make it easier.

sometimes i think that because i have

not yet done all that i am capable of

i am nothing. this is the kind of shit that 

gets me into trouble. 

but you see where it comes from. if we are

makers above all (are we?)

and we do not make, or do not make

the best we can make, 

then all of our losses lose their reasons.

we want to feel like this is worth it. 

but that's only if you 

think of a loss as one half of a ratio, 

when really it's more like 

the animals we sleep with, 

who have no reasons for being born 

but still give us comfort and 

companionship in the night. we love them

for being with us.

we can love our losses in this way too.

i believe i am worth the same no matter 

what i do. a steady line. 

i learned that in a self-help book but it's true. 

there is more in what i paint than my life

as a painter and i pray for the day 

i lose track of my hands like i've always 

dreamed of. 

then i will be, not new to myself, but old 

like a god, like a huge forever iceberg in antarctica,

and i will navigate around myself like an 

off-course fishing boat, 

big men standing on the deck, looking up

and then, slowly, down.