"Stay gold, Ponyboy." - The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
Have you ever broken a favorite vase or mug and kept the pieces instead of throwing them away? When my Mom gave me a pair of marble urns that used to sit in front of my grandmother's New Orleans home, naturally I promptly broke one. Was I really going to glue it back together? Was the value the object, or what it represented? Somewhere, in the back of my mind, the pieces spoke to me, so I kept them..
Then, one day, my son told me about the ancient philosophy of Kintsugi. Kintsugi dates back to the 15th century and is a method of repairing broken pottery with gold. The philosophy is that the scars add value to the piece because they reflect the use of the object. The scars are treasured. He repaired my urn and it is beautiful, scars and all.
I think the same philosophy can apply to our writing. We all have "pieces" of life floating around that we keep. Our words are the "gold" we use to put them all together. Imagine what a beautiful work we can create!
In an interesting side note, did you know that Susan Eloise Hinton wrote "The Outsiders" while she was still in high school? And she just used her initials because her publisher thought that book reviews would be more favorable if the reviewers thought it was written by a man.
What's stopping you? Start gathering those pieces and stay gold!
Have you ever broken a favorite vase or mug and kept the pieces instead of throwing them away? When my Mom gave me a pair of marble urns that used to sit in front of my grandmother's New Orleans home, naturally I promptly broke one. Was I really going to glue it back together? Was the value the object, or what it represented? Somewhere, in the back of my mind, the pieces spoke to me, so I kept them..
Then, one day, my son told me about the ancient philosophy of Kintsugi. Kintsugi dates back to the 15th century and is a method of repairing broken pottery with gold. The philosophy is that the scars add value to the piece because they reflect the use of the object. The scars are treasured. He repaired my urn and it is beautiful, scars and all.
I think the same philosophy can apply to our writing. We all have "pieces" of life floating around that we keep. Our words are the "gold" we use to put them all together. Imagine what a beautiful work we can create!
In an interesting side note, did you know that Susan Eloise Hinton wrote "The Outsiders" while she was still in high school? And she just used her initials because her publisher thought that book reviews would be more favorable if the reviewers thought it was written by a man.
What's stopping you? Start gathering those pieces and stay gold!