Right now I want to commit to writing an introspective rant, while the thought is still fresh.
Reflecting upon my life up to the present day -- which I've had ample time, and opportunity, to do lately -- I see a repeating cycle of rising and falling fortune. The cycle is sine-wave shaped as my fortunes -- material, emotional, spirital, social, creative -- rise, and sawtooth- or staircase-like as they fall. I'm oversimplifying to be sure, but the pattern is undeniable.
The image that best captures the pattern for me is that of Sisyphus, the character of Greek myth condemned to push a boulder up a steep slope, only to have it fall back to the bottom at the end of each day. Except I'm not pushing a boulder up a mountain -- I'm pushing it up Maslow's Pyramid.
Abraham Maslow articulated a hierarchy of human needs, arguing that needs at the "base" of his pyramid had to be satisfied before an individual could meet, or even aspire to, the needs in the next level of his hierarchy. The base includes fundamental physiological needs: food, shelter, clothing, that sort of thing. From there, one can move through higher levels: Safety, Love, etc. until one reaches the highest level, self-actualization, at which true artistic expression (among other pursuits) becomes possible.
I have been far more fortunate than Sisyphus, in that I can recall many moments where I was able to pause at the summit of Maslow's Pyramid, my boulder tucked under my arm and thus prevented, for an always-too-brief shining moment, from rolling back down. At such times, I have come excrutiatingly close to being an artist -- or rather, to give those moments an even broader and yet more accurate description, close to creating something genuine.
I am also tickled to note that in any fair assessment of my joys and travails thus far, I cannot credit my strengths or abilities with aiding my rises in fortune, nor my weaknesses or errors in judgement for the times when my fortunes fell. It hasn't been random, exactly, but the recurring moral of the story (or at least, the moral I choose to distill) is that I'm not in control of my life, and that there are other forces at work here. Forces worth trying to understand and appreciate.
In mulling over all this, something I do far less than this post would suggest, I find my thoughts accompanied by a background noise, a muffled mantra, or perhaps, a weakened but still sonorous battle cry: I'm not done yet.