The Blind Artisan

A few weeks ago I read The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin, often listed as one of the genre's masterpieces its innovative treatment of several deep themes. It draws its title from its exploration of inner light and darkness, the known and the unknown, and proposes that we most accept both. That idea spoke to me.

As a writer, I am limited: I rarely comprehend my own writing, at least not in full. I can be the doer or I can be the thinker, but not both at once. I just don’t have the mental resources to view what I write as what it truly is: both the sum of the parts and the parts themselves, simultaneously. If I try, I get overwhelmed, blinded, and so to create I must limit my vision.

For me, writing is much like putting on a welder’s mask. The welder’s tool, the arc, could blind the welder in a second, so the welder wears a mask that blocks out all but the brightest light. The mask lets the welder see the details right next to the arc, but nothing farther away. In order to see the work in full, the welder must to flip the mask up, step back, and plan.

                                                   

So like the welder, I fumble. I poke and scrape in the dark. I focus on details, I feel them weave together under my hand without fully understanding them, and every once in awhile I pull back and examine what I’ve done. Often I shake my head and put the mask back on, sometimes I nod my head at a solid day’s work, and on occasion I impress myself.

It’s important that I plan ahead, but not too far ahead. Too much light can blind, after all: too great an understanding stifles the creative impulse, because when you already know everything, why bother creating more? That’s not to say planning isn’t important. A welder who works on and on without flipping up the mask, stepping back, and looking creates a very hot mess, figuratively and literally. It’s important to alternate: putting on the mask to work, taking off the mask to plan, weaving together the two roles in a way that works for you.

When you create, understand that you can never understand what you do. Not in full. And learn to accept it.

What a princess does

I recently accepted a job teaching young kids science at a summer camp. The camp focuses on getting the kids to want to learn, inspiring them to be excited about learning and to inquire about the world around them. On my first day, we took the kids to the park so they could examine different leaves and make observations, and they dove right into it. They were talking about wanting to be scientists when they grew up. They wanted to learn and discover, and the sheer wonder with which they plunged into it amazed me.

But one girl, though she enjoyed learning, wanted something else. "I want to be a princess," she said.

I didn't say anything. It was my first day there, and I was still feeling my way around. Like the kids, I was learning as I went. I looked to the senior teacher for a response.

"What does a princess do?" asked the senior teacher.

"Magic!" she said.

"What kind of magic?"

"Elsa!" With a bit of prodding, she clarified: she had just seen Frozen, thought Princess Elsa's ice magic was cool as heck, and wanted to find practical uses for it. Like building ice castles.

Though we were outside, my jaw hit the proverbial floor. American media teaches girls they should be princesses: elegant and beautiful and above all passive, static, a walking image, not a person. But here was a girl, only three years old, who saw it differently, who wanted to be a princess, not because of what a princess is, but because of what she does.

Though it wasn't perfect, I really loved Frozen, and I could spend hours talking about it. But I won't, not here, because in one word, that girl spoke more truth about it than I've seen in pages and pages of excited, academic, but adult discussion.

Frozen teaches girls that they can, and should, do things. That they can run, and build, and create, and change the world.

And that's cool as heck.