Today, on a lovely Good Friday, I found a nature trail close to my home, and the sights I beheld were quite lovely. I started to take pictures and videos in the hopes of creating something out of it, but it turns out that the process was a bit frustrating. Part of the problem was that I was enjoying the scenery, and yet somehow I was not able to communicate something that is interesting or sharable about that experience. Although the experience felt meaningful to me, it seems that I had been forcing myself to communicate a narrative on top of it that conforms to certain ideas. When I do this kind of thing, I find that the experience takes time to sink in. A story hasn't yet formed around the pictures and videos.
Is there a meaning to all of this from a Buddhist perspective? Well, I suppose that in Buddhism, there is never a sole creator of anything, but rather things come about through many interlocking conditions. Sometimes, an idea needs to take a lot of time to come to fruition, and I find that in these moments, it's best to wait for a story or narrative to emerge as the mind starts to clear. Another way of looking at this might be to say that creation is not a one-time event that is done by a single agent, but it rather involves a complex 'call and answer' dynamic. I call out to the world, and hope that the world will come back to me in dialogue, provided that the conditions are there. But if nothing happens whatsoever, then I need to be happy with that as well. If I am trying too hard to 'control' what the story will reveal, then I am not open to the kinds of surprises that make stories satisfying and interesting to people. It is as though there is a fixed script in mind and I am not even open to the possibility of changing that script at some later point in time.
Perhaps all the things we make are the result of a combination of initiative and humility: though my intention and effort might be strong, there needs to be a certain surrender to something else that completes the story.
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