An old plush brown leather briefcase sat on top of our cupboards in the bedroom.
As a child, I’d snap back the shiny gold buckles to find the few treasures my father had retained from his past.
Inside this briefcase were two small notebooks.
Thumbing through the yellowed brittle pages, you could see an elegant slanted handwriting documenting the weekly price of potatoes, onions and tomatoes. There were lines for the balance, net expenditure and projections – all beautifully scripted in the delicate steady handwriting.
No. It wasn’t just handwriting.
It was calligraphy. It was effortless art. It was beauty.
These ledgers belonged to my grandfather who was an accountant. He worked in Abedan, Persia (modern day Iran) for British Petroleum.
When he returned to India to retire, he continued keeping the books with his characteristic professional and artistic rigour.
Now, decades later, those weekly accounts truly were works of art. His accounting was beautiful.
When I asked my father why he kept these accounts which were no longer relevant – he’d smile and quoted the phrase…
‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’
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A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
My father has said this phrase to me time and time again. My father saw beauty and joy in what I saw as the most mundane activities. He reminded me whenever I was rushing through household work to slow down and do the job well.
Neither a materialistic man nor a fashion conscious man, my father had a sense of pride in the way he dressed. It was all about neatness and propriety. His shirts were cleaned and perfectly pressed. He didn’t care if the shirt had a hole in it – as long as it was neatly darned. I never saw him wear a shirt that he hadn’t ironed in his trademarked systematic ironing process (which he later taught me).
If he fixed something in the house it was done with precision. He didn’t do a hatchet job or the bare minimum. He brought out his extremely organized orange toolbox and worked with focus and deliberation – wiping beads of sweat from his forehead.
And…every month, I watched him channel his own father. He kept a record of the monthly accounts in a big blue ledger. He would place a ruler exactly perpendicular to the lined page. With quick and steady hands he drew perfectly straight, perfectly perpendicular lines.
His handwriting, like his fathers, is thin, slanted and consistent.
Like his father, my father’s accounts are a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
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A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
This artistic penship or prodigious accounting isn’t something I’ve inherited or cultivated. (Erm, can we blame Excel Spreadsheets for this..?)
Still, I think about this concept of steadiness, deliberation and pace a lot.
Especially when it comes to our creativity – or as it is more crudely referred to these days: ‘content creation’.
My grandfather and my father came from a completely different generation.
The world was different.
There was time.
Time to incubate. Time to create.
And there was time to go really really really slow.
What could happen if we brought a similar deliberation to our thinking, art and storytelling?
What happens when we allow something as simple as writing the monthly expenses to be a deliberate steady meditation on pen brush strokes and focus?
Beauty preserved and remembered decades later.
Get your work out there Yesterday / NOW…
I often think about this value system of deliberation when so much of the advice about creation in our world is about ‘getting it out there’. In the toxic masculinity / bro world of entrepreneurship and hyper productivity – there is a notion that you need it to get things done YESTERDAY.
Even in more ethical feminist circles, there is a valid pushback against perfectionism (which indeed is a form of oppression). They tell us – Get your work out there! Imperfections, flaws and all. Get it out as soon as you can. You don’t have to be perfect.
Part of the problem is that we are all functioning in an extractive world perpetuated by a false sense of urgency to always be ON, always be producing and publishing.
I’ve felt a great amount of resistance to this.
I believe in allowing yourself to take as much or as little time as you need.
When it comes to my art, poetry or articles I tend to have this nagging feeling to keep revisiting the work. I open, open and re-open the document. I reconsider the issues. I turn it over and over and over in my head.
And then, at some point – there is that feeling – it is done.
That is when I step back knowing – this is a thing of beauty which is indeed a joy forever… to some extent.
I don’t need to be perfect before I show up & I need to feel ready to show
So how do you know how much time you really need? My answer to this question of work has always been travelling from within. I listen closely to the little voice within me that goes – Ahhh. It’s done. It’s finished.
After hours, weeks, months or years of editing, fiddling and tweaking – there comes a feeling. I know the work is done.
I push my work away, almost like a delicious saccharine dessert – when you’ve had your fill and your body says – it is done.
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This isn’t just about personal preferences. It is about our responsibility for the ideas we convey.
There seems to be a lack of appreciation for the amount of time and energy it takes to hesitate and truly think something through.
Let’s talk about our work from a social justice perspective. If we are serious about considering the very real implications of us showing up and being in the world – we do need to slow down.
This is a genuine call for us to individually and collectively take it upon ourselves to first develop our awareness, our internal compass, our systems of accountability and our relationships.
This is a call to engage publicly in social media, society and the collective from this deeply tended and deeply grounded place. This is a place to make mistakes, ask questions before making pronouncements or putting out business offers.
This is a call to bring WAY more and more genuine awareness to who we are and why we do what we do – and bring this into our art and creativity.
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Trust the process – Surrender in the age of capitalism
After everything I’ve just said – I know that my words will fall flat on many ears. The push, push, push of capitalism and this ‘productivity’ mindset – makes it very difficult to trust our intuition and slow our pace down.
If I don’t beat myself with the scourge of a deadline – will I ever get it done? Hey, I hear you – I’ve been there myself.
When the pull of capitalism or the fear of scarcity grips deep within your heart – you don’t need deadlines. You need trust.
Trust in the process.
Surrender knowing you will create what you need to create.
Trust it will be seen or not seen by those who need to see it.
Listen to your own intuition. And shut out everything else.
You know.
You know deeply truly when and how and even IF you need to be out there and up there.
The piece of work which you are putting out there – the piece of work which has its own life.
That piece of work signals to you – I’m done.
Listen to your heart and the spirit of the work you are trying to create. Deliberate, put it aside and give it as much time to stretch and breathe. If it needs to be shared, you will know. Release it.
Then… it will be a thing of beauty. A joy, forever.
