Playforce and the Ease of Perfection

Playforce and the Ease of Perfection

 

            Playforce is the language whose style is both playful and powerful, like a God in the form of a child. Playwork is the product of such a style and mindset.

            Health for me is never in the suppression of my terrible and demanding affects -- heaven forbid! -- but in the use of every desire, lust, inkling, whim, be it morbid, moribund, or floridly electric. I am a set of intense energies so fiercely coiled that to puncture one would exclude in a typical fury -- I call them "heart storms" -- but the overall balance, when every passion has its flow and use, renders me a man of slack, utterly lazy, a master at doing nothing.

            Only what is done in ease can ever be perfect. But of course, a great thing can only be done in ease after inimitable practice. And one is only willing and able to practice that difficult thing if he has some necessity, some compulsion, some "driving demon" or "inspiring angel."

            Every artist thirsts to be praised for his spiritual triumphs, when he wrestles his God the blessing point, and walks therefore with the limp of exhaustion. His audience does not praise the work that nearly killed him. The naive audience praises that silly easy thing he does with an offhand gesture, without thinking, without hardly trying. The naive audience is right. For great spiritual triumphs can only be appreciated by silent self-praise -- that is best. Nobody else knows the inner of the in of your soul, they can't know what it cost you. But henceforth, all your easy offhand gestures are purified and brought to utter apotheosis, though you know it not.

            The onlooker might be shocked that the artist considers all praise and cheer as nullified by some small fault in his wonderful work. Yet the artist is justified in his lament, because the triumph of the easy part is yesterday's triumph. Today's struggle is upon this small fine point. It is wise to strain a gnat while swallowing camels -- anybody who practices towards perfection knows that. For the outside, us artists and perfectionists seem never satisfied with our work. We are greatly satisfied with our work, and even our self-reproach is a hidden boast.

            Each man's spiritual journey is unique to him, and those who lack sympathy can't appraise what it cost him. The elderly man who finally gained the endurance to complete a jog around the block may have required more will power than the youth who runs the marathon. Only sensitive sympatric understanding can see what is truly beautiful in you.

            So don't pose, and don't try to appeal or please. "Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a  whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare?" So said Emerson, who in his writing exhibited every beautiful virtue who would laud in another. And he is right, for when you fall back on yourself and your resources, you will see that this new thing you are facing is the same challenge you've struggled with your whole life. Perfection is easy, time is now; Apotheosis beckons, eternity bows. Not only your vital Self, that uncreated, timeless, deathless perfect inner sun can lend you power in your daily doings, but a lifetimes soul of accumulated habits.

            For this, we say that no deed goes unrewarded or unpunished: that you said or did a thing forever changes your body, your body on earth, and its transfiguration into the cosmic body in the next world. Karma is physiologically. Deceive your friend and your throat stiffens. Give aid to the ungrateful relative and though he curses you for your effort, your heart has expanded and your love is greater.

            Practice insistently, challenge yourself every day, always attempt more, stretch yourself daily; let the world praise you for what comes easy to you, but praise yourself for what came only after great struggle.

 

 

 

\ ~@M@~ /

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