A favorite book of mine since its publication in 1990 is Stone Work, by John Jerome. In it, the author meditates on the nature of work as he rebuilds a stone wall on his property in western Massachusetts. The following quote perfectly captures how elusive the act of seeing, and understanding what you are seeing, can be:
“I’ve never learned how to focus my attention, just as I never learned to study in school, only to read the books—the stories—that pulled my attention out of me. Actively focusing attention, coming up with enough mental energy to keep attention focused on something, was entirely too much effort. I didn’t know how to do it. I still don’t. I want to be able to step back and let the sheer beauty of this place overwhelm me, carry me passively along, but clearly that’s all wrong, a sure way to tune out: what I have to do to see into the woods is dig into the details (as Mies van der Rohe pointed out long ago—quoting, I’m sure, someone else). To focus on detail I take notes, attempting to write down the riches of the woods, trying to convince myself that I have gotten those riches. But I haven’t, I never have. I don’t know enough, don’t see enough, don’t know how to see. Don’t know what I’ve seen, what was going on, until I get back and start writing about it, telling myself the story: debriefing myself on the experience. Every time that I see a little bit more, it tells me there are worlds and worlds to see, deeper yet. The pleasure I get when I see a little tells me that all pleasure, all happiness, lies in seeing more. Whenever I manage to see some tiny bit, I always say to myself again, yes, that’s the way I wish I lived: seeing these things.”
I particularly relate to how hard Jerome digs into what he is trying to understand and how he goes back again and again to grasp it fully. This is what creative work is like- hacking away at something you don’t fully understand and realizing you might never understand it, but that’s ok. And trusting that what you are doing is important, if only to you.
