….or Evidence of things Hoped for…
There is one thing that is almost inevitable in this life, whether long and prosperous or short and jagged – people collect junk.
For the sake of argument, I’m heaping those who keep sentimental trinkets from their past into the same bucket as those who are borderline obsessive about their collections. That raw gem you gleaned from a split in a sidewalk during your honeymoon would be no less precious to an obsessive personality over their stack of yellowed newspapers stored from nine years past.
As a child, I remember my own aged family members, who seemed almost destitute to throw away small items they deemed reusable on a rainy day. My own grandfather kept everything from used screws to straightened nails, sorted in old coffee cans, and my grandmother had a special drawer in her dresser with bits and pieces of her sewing craft as well as an old scratched magnifying glass. Their obsession was derived from a depression era philosophy ingrained into their very pores.
Waste not, want not.
It was Thomas A. Edison that said –
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
As a writer, creativity can creep up on you at the oddest of moments, linking junked memories from your past, and assembling them into something bright, shiny, and new. Good memories, bad memories, and even the mundane are items that are not easily discarded.
We all collect junk in our lives like a vacuum collecting dust bunnies. Never believe that your life has been too short, too uneventful, inexperienced, or drab to become or create something more than you already are.
If you feel life has handed you a box of junk or inanimate parts, take the time to find their collective use and see a competed work of art. Whether you write, paint, or create metal artwork, take a moment to inventory and use those discarded items from your life.
David Pyle
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