Meditation: This one is going to be a little meta and I hope I won’t be misunderstood, since for what I’m about to say a good friend jokingly(?) called me an ingrate. He’s sort of correct and sort of poking fun and sort of posing a profound question.
Sep 22, 2023·edited Sep 22, 2023Liked by Brady Putzke
You could say that Vladimir Nobokov is a literary genius and you wouldn't hear much in the way of arguments or objections. But if you asked him what his passion was, what it was that made his soul sing, he'd say it was butterflies. Lepidoptera to be more specific. He devoted himself to them completely. Efforts spent on illustrations and descriptions. Untold miles of expeditions and their untold expenses. He said what he hoped to find in art he found in nature, in the study of these insects. He was never given any credence by entomologists. And yet all of that care, that attention, that wonder, that enchantment was imprinted on everything he had ever written.. Would you call that resistance? Laziness? Distraction? Was he procrastinating? Or had he simply found a deeper form of creative connection?
You could say that Vladimir Nobokov is a literary genius and you wouldn't hear much in the way of arguments or objections. But if you asked him what his passion was, what it was that made his soul sing, he'd say it was butterflies. Lepidoptera to be more specific. He devoted himself to them completely. Efforts spent on illustrations and descriptions. Untold miles of expeditions and their untold expenses. He said what he hoped to find in art he found in nature, in the study of these insects. He was never given any credence by entomologists. And yet all of that care, that attention, that wonder, that enchantment was imprinted on everything he had ever written.. Would you call that resistance? Laziness? Distraction? Was he procrastinating? Or had he simply found a deeper form of creative connection?
Felt.