Finishing is starting again

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Hey, Creator.

We complete so that we can create. We end so we can begin again. All of life is in a constant state of flux; that’s what it means to be alive—to always be changing. When we stop changing, we die; and that’s part of life, too.

To create is to capture a bit of that life, to honor the process of which we are a part. We cannot escape the very act to which we are contributing, because it is happening to us. We are not just making; we are being made. As one of my favorite philosophers says, “You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it.” The Universe is not some mystical force that is separate from you; you’re a part of this thing. We all are.

We are not just individuals witnessing separate events. We are events, both influenced by and exerting influence on what we see in front of us. This experience of living, what Mary Oliver called “wild and precious,” is a ride unlike any amusement park attraction you’ve ever seen. Buckle up. It only gets bumpier and weirder as we go. As long as you understand your place in the order of things, you realize that your life can bear no other adjective than “essential.” Your part in this could simply not be avoided, because here you are.

One of the things I love about creative work is how it often points me back to life. And not just abstractly, but specifically. *My* life. A good movie, a great song, a poignant book are all reminders of what is being lived through me right now.

And just like life, art is never done; it is always finding new ways to let go of itself so that it can become something else. We do this, too, in our lives and work. We finish one task so that we can begin another. We change homes, relationships, vocations. Even when we don’t know what’s next, we hope for another chance at novelty, one more opportunity to start over. That hope is the life inside of us that wants to keep growing, to keep perpetuating itself.

Often, we are unaware of how related one thing is to the next, how connected the new is to the old and how two events require each other to exist at all. For now, it’s just this project. This job. This blind date. Yet another book or client or honest day’s work. The experience of making one thing after the next can feel monotonous when we fail to pay attention. Nietzsche said that if you stare deeply enough into the void, you’ll find something staring back at you. I think part of what he meant was that wherever you go, there you are. You can’t escape the fact that there is always an observer, always a witness. You are never as alone as you might think. As one dying sage said to his disciples when they begged him not to leave: “Where would I go?”

In every acorn, there is an oak tree waiting to be born. But every tree is also longing to become an acorn again. Life is never complete, never done. It’s always expanding, always evolving, like a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes collapsing into itself to create something new, each more beautiful than the last. Never boring. Never repetitive. Always interesting.

Which is greater: the butterfly or the caterpillar? Did the egg precede the chicken, or was it the other way around? Is all of life a dance of incessant rebirth, or is there some ultimate end or meaning or point to all this? I think this is the point: We are never ending anything. Not really.

Everything is a continuation of what has been. How could it not be? Humans never stop finding new ways to say the same thing over and over, discovering something unique and original each time. We are always Michelangelo chipping away at a block of marble, searching for the angel within. And as soon as she is freed, she flies right back into another piece of stone, waiting to be discovered again.

You can’t start without finishing. You can’t finish until you begin. And we are always somewhere in the middle of the race, putting one foot in front of another, wondering what wants to be witnessed next.
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Jeff
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The first step to finishing is to begin.

And the secret to getting unstuck

is to begin again. ​
​

We cannot bring anything to completion.

That’s not our job.

We do not cross all items off our list forever.

There is always more laundry to do.

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There is no such thing as a project finished,

a painting touched up,

a novel ended.

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We live and create in the incompletion,

the comma between phrases,

the hyphen interjecting itself amongst meandering thoughts.

​

Every record that spins

is not the correct song,

just the sound that came out

that day—

when a boy slapped his guitar for a beleaguered producer who decided
to hit “record.”​
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Every book we see on the shelf is not the best of what could have been

but that which was allowed

to be.

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We do not finish.

We do not complete.

We are always in the middle,

somewhere between once-upon-a-time and that’s-all-folks,

the hyphen holding it all together. ​
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All we can do is start.

Here,

Then here.

Then here, again.

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We keep beginning until

we find ourselves at the line

where runners receive medals

and feed their bodies on stale bagels

And cartons of chocolate milk.

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“Well done,” they cheer

with flags and signs and congratulations.

But we know better.

We know where we really are:

And with lactic acid in our lungs,

We wonder how we got to this place once again—

The beginning of everything that could ever be.

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