Edgar Degas:
Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery
(1885)

I Wonder What Insufficiency Buys Me
In my seemingly endless search for sufficiency, I do not always notice just how extraordinary I might already be. I may have been too focused on improvement to muster a decent acceptance that how, what, or who I was might have surprisingly qualified as plenty, as enough. Our culture seems obsessed with pursuing continuous improvement, which amounts to a self-image of continual inadequacy. Who would hope to be presently inadequate so they might find themselves improved later? If we're not quite ourselves yet, who was supposed to pursue the aspired for improvement? We can deny that we're adequate, but what do my convictions of insufficiency buy me, really?

Weekly Writing Summary

I began my writing week by needlessly complaining about how my work as The Muse's Campaign Mismanager might be CrowdingOut my more important work. "This life should properly resemble a feast rather than a prim and tidy tea party. The notion that anyone's work will ultimately get done or that anything really urgent won't get finished seems absurdist on its face."

William Henry Jackson,
The Immense Crowd, World's Columbian Exposition (1894)
"Even the CrowdingOut gets crowded out sometimes."
—
I next considered the considerable sin of asperation, of seeking to somehow become something more than MerelyHuman. "Our search for superpowers amounts to a denial of inherent sufficiency, that seeking to become somehow supercharged delays realizing just how powerful we already are."

Gustave Courbet: Mère Grégoire (1855 and 1857/59)
" … the questionable superpower that comes from wearing Spandex®"
—
I reported how The Muse has become a local Celebrity, and of some of the more prominent responsibilities that status brings. "Celebrity brings greater responsibility, primarily the sacred obligation to be late for supper six nights out of seven."

Ben Shahn: Sideshows at the Ashville,
July 4th celebration, Ashville, Ohio (1938)
" … providing the forehead The Muse uses to bounce her hair-brained ideas off of …"
—
I next confessed to being terribly unskilled at PacingMyself. "I do not aspire to live a well-regulated life, however attractive it might seem when I feel exhausted."

Will Hicock Low:
Foremost in the Envious Race (1885)
" … Traveling hopefully, if never fully arriving."
—
A flat tire inspired me to confess that I've been blessed with the ability to receive mysterious messages in Portending "I'm a true believer in what many consider to be absolute delusion. So much the worse for them, those forced to live purely in unvarnished reality without a shred of epic suggestion."

Adolf Hohenstein: Time Cooperative (1899)
" … giving my existence special meaning here."
—
I caught myself Overreaching, and reflected on how very human that experience seems. "We might forget our place in this vast universe and thereby forget our absolute insignificance. Our infinitesimal role provides the premise for us to act in perfect freedom if only we can maintain the decorum to perform."

Jan Asselijn: The Threatened Swan (c. 1650)
"We were supposed to be better than this."
—
I ended my writing week memoralizing a dear friend who departed this life this week in *RichLife, which was the most popular piece this period. " I loved the man and the little boy inside him."

Pieter van der Heyden:
"Nemo Non” (Every man looks for his own profit) (c. 1563)
"I missed him before he left."
—
Another extraordinary week! They come one after another before I adequately prepare to experience or chronicle. My life seems to crowd out my life sometimes. My merely human presence might represent my deepest purpose. The Muse might become a celebrity, but I aspire to remain at most arm candy. I do suck at pacing myself. I interpret virtually everything I experience, searching for significance or confirmation. I realize that I am not more or less apt to engage in overreaching than anyone and try to own my folly. It seems no accident that this writing week ended with a significant loss that no individual or experience will ever replace. As infinite as we each certainly are, we also seem remarkably finite. Zero-sum is not a game and not a delusion. We lose whatever we love. This makes both us and our venerated sacred. Thank you for following along!

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GoodNuff, #PureSchmaltz