The autonomy of the human experience turned into art is key in the teaching of the famous poet, William Stafford. He has said “I don’t want to write good poems. I want to write inevitable poems.” He advocated that “the research for what you are writing is your whole life.” That applies to writing short stories, novels, poetry and just living out your dreams in your everyday life.
As complicated as life can be for all of us, Stafford reminded us that it’s ok to be simple, to use simple words to tell a story.” We do not need to make our work more complicated by looking so hard for the right words or the right way to express ourselves. It’s ok to make a mess when we are writing, just as long as we keep going and do not give up. Somewhere buried in that mess there is a neater line or a paragraph or story that we can use another day which has the potential to blossom into the artwork we had envisioned and thought we were not capable of producing.
Isn’t that true of life as well? Don’t we perpetually make a mess of things and then feel the overwhelming desire to give up, throw in the towel and walk away,or worse yet, make the situation worse by placing blame where it does not belong. Too often we neglect to find the value of life’s lessons and we forget that we do learn through our mistakes if we are only wise enough to dig through the mess of our consequences. To unbury the lesson deep down and despite however heavy it feels, to pick it up and carry it forward in our pursuit of creating happiness.
William Stafford said “Writing a poem is easy, like swimming into a fish trap. Analyzing a poem is hard, like swimming out of a fish trap.” We must not be afraid to live today messily if need be because tomorrow we must be able to see beneath the mess for the shining piece that works and revise it and mold it into the fine polished piece of art that we had dreamed about when we began our journey. It is autonomy of our human experiences that create the final piece of art work that we are left with to rejoice in and admire in the end.