In the final paragraph of Camus’ last published essay, Create Dangerously, we found this radical idea:

One may long, as I do, for a gentler flame, a respite, a pause for musing. But perhaps there is no other peace for the artist than what he finds in the heat of combat. ‘Every wall is a door,’ Emerson correctly said. Let us not look for the door, and the way out, anywhere but in the wall against which we are living. Instead, let us seek the respite where it is—in the very thick of battle. For in my opinion…it IS there…

…As a result, there shines forth fleetingly the ever threatened truth that each and every man, on the foundation of his own sufferings and joys, builds for all.

He believed that the artist, and each of us, should confront the unique walls and impediments and questions that define our existence, and, paradoxically, REST in those difficult, uncomfortable places. That is the place from which we

create dangerously (camus)

It is not easy to do. It reminds us of artist Holton Rower’s admonition to “Run towards your fear!”

 

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