to readers

i want to say this to you....

fictional architect howard roark, that noble soul in THE FOUNTAINHEAD (Ayn Rand), says to someone who understood perfectly what roark is doing with in his buildings, "i'm helpless against anyone who sees what you saw in my buildings."

(sidenote confession, i think i'm a little in love with howard roark.)

another scene of the book brings howard roark to meet with stephen mallory, a sculpture who is beaten and rundown by the world. when howard tells him what he sees in stephen's work, stephen replies,

"how did you know what's been killing me? slowly, for years, driving me to hate people when i don't want to hate them...have you felt it too? have you seen how your best friends love everything about you -- except the things that count? and your most important is nothing to them, nothing, not even a sound they can recognize. you mean, YOU want to hear?...it's not boring to you? it's important?"

howard does want to hear which unleashes a dam within stephen. he talks for hours "gluttonously, like a drowning man flung out to shore, getting drunk on huge, clean snatches of air."

true artists don't work for the acknowledgement. they work because they must. they work because a story or song or building is burning inside of them and that creator within will not be silent (just as our creator had to say "let there be..."). artists don't wait to see who will see them, but there is something deep and affirming when one does. and on the other side, the viewer, perceiver gains acknowledgement by seeing. when i discover great art, i feel a deep, affirming acknowlegement that i too am alive and for me, it then becomes something of a divine gift through the artist. and sometimes great art comes in the strangest places -- in the smooth lines of a boat, the complexities of a machine, in the work of a spider, know what i mean?

yet, an artist standing there naked and bare discovers the worst kind of pain is not ridicule, disgust, or confusion -- the worst comes in the turning away, the apathetic glance, the yawn. the worst is that a life isn't worth acknowledgement. howard roark could live with it; his work uncompromised. stephen mallory let the yawns nearly destroy him.

my random thoughts today are twofold. partially, my response to reading a beautiful book. i don't believe in all of ayn rand's philosophy, but that doesn't matter. i feel better for the reading and will read it again and again (you should see the pages and pages of underlined passages).

the other part, is thanks to readers. the emails of late from readers all over –Australia, Texas, Rhode Island, Tennessee -- amazing. also the phone calls -- m. thompson and also t.roe in colorado (i wish to say how much it meant that you'd underlined passages), and to those who put reviews on amazon.com and have commented about this blog.

sometimes i don't get back right away to you. other authors are so much better. but it's never truly neglect. i want the energy and voice to respond and make you understand what your words mean to me. it's difficult to express in a short note. it feels generic, those words of thanks. but it's not generic -- every email and letter is truly a gift, and i wish to tell you that.

as with howard roark and stephen mallory, i wish to say that i'm a little helpless when i get your notes, and that it means much that you would hear me and want to listen.