some pressing errand

Beyond fame and fortune lies an integrity of spirit necessary to carry one toward the highest expression of self and the highest expression of humanity. That highest expression can no more be that of nobleness, grandeur, or righteousness than it can be of squalor, laziness, and evil. It is all of these things. The highest expression of humanity and self is that of honesty. The fullest honest expression of the human experience as it has been told and retold for thousands of years is the artists quest. This quest is the highest errand and its rewards lie beyond any earthly promise and perhaps even beyond any heavenly rewards believed or true for we know not what they are.

What rewards are there then - the admiration of peers - the adulation of critics? From where do the boons come? From within? The feeling of a job well done? If there were a reward would it ever be enough if it came from without rather than within? Where then? What then? It could only come from within; that internal pleasure and knowing that one's work is being done and one's being is working towards some goal that can never be reached.

The work of the artist carries no reward worth working toward. To play on myth: the quest has no reward - the scrolls are blank - the hoard of gold is worthless, and no amount of heavenly virgins can satisfy the ache and wonder of the human mind.

It is only the answering of a call that has the artist create. It is without reward to create. What of beauty? What of evil and good? Even these lack honesty - to judge and deem beautiful, ugly, evil, grotesque is base. It is superficial and trite. One can look beyond these judgments and see further toward the truth - the asymptotic truth that can never be reached. At this truth there is no good and evil though the human experience may seem to be full of such categorization. Truth lies beyond these in some universal constant that is expressed in us as emotion and instinct.

Somewhere between emotion and instinct lies for us the beauty of humanity where we act and react wondering if we act and react of our own free will. Is it all written? Is there destiny or fate? Even these become parochial views when considered in the universal context. What plan can exist inside of our expanding universe - our breathing universe that we have the pleasure of knowing now as being on the out-breath. Was there a Big Contraction before the Big Bang? That is a question that guides this artist.

With this question, no reward, and a commitment to create with honesty one can be left lost unless guided by some higher knowing.