Ok, so, I’ve been looking for this video clip to share with you and I cannot find it for my life. It’s a few years old and it’s from Oprah. So I’m going to share what I have in my notes.
Here’s what she said and what I wrote down:
Oprah was visiting a village on one of her sojourns abroad. It wasn’t doing well. She noticed a young girl nearby was messing with a small piece of cloth and a blob of mud.
People were hungry.
It was dirty.
Access to healthcare was limited. Clean water was scarce.
And this little girl was messing with a small piece of cloth.
Oprah went up to the girl and asked her what she was doing with the cloth.
The girl explained that this tiny mud hut was a pretend house and the hole she made in the side was a window and the window needed a curtain.
The window needed a curtain.
In the depths of suffering, we find something small to care about. Not something practical, not something rational. Something frivolous. Something that gives us the privilege of dreaming.
Sometimes there isn’t a “good” justifiable reason to invest in our creative pursuits.
Sometimes we want to put curtains on a mud window in our village because it’s pretty. Because we can. Because we want to.
And because without it we might succumb to the pain around us.
They say art is not practical and if you’re looking at the world comparing “eating food” to putting curtains on your window, then, sure. Agreed. Food wins.
But I think a more helpful frame is to consider that we are all trying to navigate through this thing called life and certain things help us do that without imploding.
For some of us, that’s curtains on a mud hut. It can also be a book of poems, hand-drawn bookmarks, Bridge With Ballers, or finishing your EP (see more dream projects, passions, and hobbies that make our lives better here).
-Margo
PS: The Brainstorm Road Show is next week. It’s when members showcase their works in progress. It’s brave, it’s inspired, and it’s fun. Here are past show participants. Check them out 😎
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I love this post. The mud hut and the curtains. Reminds me of my childhood. I certainly wasn't starving or in this little girls place, but I used to get a medium size cardboard liquor box, cut out windows, decorate it with curtains, pictures from magazines hanging on the walls, and a crap of fabric on the floor for a rug, and pretend it was safe, loving house.
"But I think a more helpful frame is to consider that we are all trying to navigate through this thing called life and certain things help us do that without imploding." My Dad built bombs, the head engineer in charge of all the nuclear warfare produced the the USA. I never felt safe. My creativity is what got me through life!
I LOVE Brainstorm Road, the wonderful people, the fabulous support, and the safety of doing small bits daily to inch our way towards our dreams.
Thank You!
This is lovely. And thank you for the shoutout to the rectangles. This makes so much sense. Doing it because we want to is reason enough. It's been great to do the thing that was always in the shadows to the forefront, as it's given us everything.