Next Morning I Went Over To Paul’s

The Professional Is Acutely Aware Of The Intangibles That Go Into Inspiration. Out Of Respect For Them, She Lets Them Work. She Grants Them Their Sphere While She Concentrates On Hers.

The Gnostics Believed That Exile Was The Essential Condition Of Man. Do You Agree? I Do. The Artist And The Addict Both Wrestle With This Experience Of Exile. They Share An Acute, Even Excruciating Sensitivity To The State Of Separation And Isolation, And Both Actively Seek A Way To Overcome It, To Transcend It, Or At Least To Make The Pain Go Away. What Is The Pain Of Being Human? It's The Condition Of Being Suspended Between Two Worlds And Being Unable To Fully Enter Into Either.

We Fear Discovering That We Are More Than We Think We Are. More Than Our Parents/children/teachers Think We Are. We Fear That We Actually Possess The Talent That Our Still, Small Voice Tells Us. That We Actually Have The Guts, The Perseverance, The Capacity. We Fear That We Truly Can Steer Our Ship, Plant Our Flag, Reach Our Promised Land. We Fear This Because, If It’s True, Then We Become Estranged From All We Know. We Pass Through A Membrane. We Become Monsters And Monstrous.

I Wrote In The War Of Art That I Could Divide My Life Neatly Into Two Parts: Before Turning Pro And After. After Is Better.

Do I Really Believe That My Work Is Crucial To The Planet's Survival? Of Course Not. But It's As Important To Me As Catching That Mouse Is To The Hawk Circling Outside My Window. He's Hungry. He Needs A Kill. So Do I.