You may not know the name Karen Blixen, as she published under many other names. You do know her work. She wrote Out of Africa, Babette’s Feast, and several other novels and stories. She told us her story about owning a farm in Africa and changed our perspective about what a woman can do when she has no other options. I greatly appreciated these words from her about writing every day…without hope, without despair.
It may seem strange to encourage people with words like hope and despair in the same sentence. I get it. How I interpret her language is that when we are doing something and working towards a goal, we need to do the work everyday without the need to be motivated by hope or allowing ourselves to be discouraged by despair. Take the emotions out of the work, do it because you have to, not because you “feel” like doing it. Because if we only work when we feel like it, hope and despair may be ever distant or always present.
Doing what you do – what ever it is that drives you – becomes part of your daily life. Like eating breakfast or walking. You do it without thinking and know that if you don’t do it you won’t have a good day. You must do it to be the best version of yourself, so you do it without hope, without despair. Your “thing” becomes part of you, a part that gets done beyond that day’s emotions. the people who figure this out are the ones who create work that we experience and wonder, “Where did that come from?” And we are blessed to have been able to experience their work.
As Karen Blixen mentions, difficult times will come. Those times can be some of our best teachers, our worst enemies, and they will help us sort out what we want, who we are, and who we can rely on to kick us in the pants when we need it most. For it is the tough times, the self doubt, the dry idea expanses and the unmotivated mornings that make us wonder why we do what we do. If instead we put our hope and despair aside, we have the power to take control and just sludge through the work. Just do the work. Create the habit of doing it everyday and eventually it will be like eating breakfast or walking…you will do it well, without needing to be “in the mood” and the work will get done. For it is without hope, without despair that great work gets created and all our lives are better for it.
Ann Art Gallery Blog 