A Grain of Sand to Grow a Pearl

When a foreign body, such as a grain of sand or bit of food, invades the tender interior of an oyster, the bivalve defends itself by surrounding the irritant with a protective coating which eventually grows into a pearl.

Similarly, a lot of great artistic expression has arisen from the various irritations and hardships life throws at the artist.

As an example, take the musical album, Frampton Comes Alive. The band was originally not going to record on the night they did, since Peter Frampton had the flu and was running a high fever. Nevertheless, they made the last-minute decision to record, and then went on to produce one of the most iconic albums in rock and roll history. Did Frampton perform with such energy in spite of illness, or did his misery spur him to dig deep within himself, find new reserves of creative energy, and ultimately push past normal limits?



The movie Casablanca was largely written on the fly and the actors had their sights set on their next projects, and yet the movie went on to make cinematic history. Apocalypse Now is an even more extreme example, the hardships involved almost driving director Francis Ford Coppola to suicide.



So, what is my point in all this? Simply that great creative works often arise from the harshest circumstances.

As a personal example, I wrote much of my novel The Different Kinds Of Monsters while camped out at the cancer center in Zion, during a very dark stretch of my life. I truly feel that parts of the work are overwhelmingly powerful, as a result. Maybe, like the oyster, I was producing some sort of protective element for myself.



I dare say all of us have endured difficult times. The question for us Scribes, though, is what shall we do with the pain, loss, grief, frustration, and other slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Will we try to deny them, shove them aside, and pretend none of it exists? Or will we transform it all into a pearl?