Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Derrick W. Sherman, The Reunion show

I once met a man and asked him if it were true that when you get older you become wiser. He said that the only answer was to get older. Looking back to when I was a kid, I realize that my ignorance was a virtue. I saw the world in colors and shapes. Now my nerves keep me awake at night. I think about the future and what I want to do with my life. I asked that same man if he had any advice for me. He told me to quit living and start breathing. "Look around at the life you lead. Listen to the wind and the trees. Take time to smell the ocean breeze and sleep on the beach." He said that the beauty of this world was in its complexity and that our lives for the most part are ordinary. He told me to never stop painting, but mostly never stop creating. "You're as free as your mind will let you be. So, what's holding you back?" he asked, "fear or laziness??"

excerpt from one of my favorite books Revolution on Canvas, poetry from the indie music scene. Edited by Rich Balling

2 comments:

Frieda Babbley said...

I want to read more!

William Zuback said...

That is the whole piece. It is a book of poems and short essays. I love that it ends like that because it allows you to reflect on your life and to decide for yourself if you are living your life "true" to who you want to be and how you want your life to be. You can argue that it isn't as simple as fear or laziness but it certainly opens the doors of dialog in your own thought process to analyze where you've been and where you want your life to go in the future.